{"id":763,"date":"2025-12-23T10:06:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T10:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/?page_id=763"},"modified":"2025-12-23T10:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T10:15:06","slug":"chapter-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/book\/toc\/chapter-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 2: The unexpected wildness of random"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"embedurl\" data-url=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/books\/hcistats\/content1e\/chaps\/chap-2.html\" ><!--  Chapter 2 The unexpected wildness of random   -->\n\n<script>\nvar chapnos = 2;\nvar json_url = \"https:\\\/\\\/alandix.com\\\/books\\\/hcistats\\\/content1e\\\/chaps\\\/chap-2.json\";\n<\/script>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<h3> Contents <\/h3>\n<div class=\"toc\">\n<dl>\n<dt>2.1&nbsp;&nbsp;Experiments in randomness <\/dt><dd><dl>\n<dt>2.1.1&nbsp;&nbsp;Rainfall in Gheisra <\/dt>\n<dt>2.1.2&nbsp;&nbsp;Two-horse races <\/dt>\n<dt>2.1.3&nbsp;&nbsp;Lessons <\/dt>\n<\/dl><\/dd>\n<dt>2.2&nbsp;&nbsp;Quick (and dirty!) tip <\/dt><dd><dl>\n<dt>2.2.1&nbsp;&nbsp;Case 1 &ndash; small proportions <\/dt>\n<dt>2.2.2&nbsp;&nbsp;Case 2 &ndash; large majority <\/dt>\n<dt>2.2.3&nbsp;&nbsp;Case 3 &ndash; middling <\/dt>\n<dt>2.2.4&nbsp;&nbsp;Why does this work? <\/dt>\n<dt>2.2.5&nbsp;&nbsp;More important than the math &hellip; <\/dt>\n<\/dl><\/dd>\n<dt>2.3&nbsp;&nbsp;Probability can be hard &ndash; from goats to DNA <\/dt><dd><dl>\n<dt>2.3.1&nbsp;&nbsp;The Monty Hall Problem <\/dt>\n<dt>2.3.2&nbsp;&nbsp;Tip: make the numbers extreme <\/dt>\n<dt>2.3.3&nbsp;&nbsp;DNA evidence <\/dt>\n<\/dl><\/dd>\n<\/dl><\/div>\n\n\n<h3> Glossary items referenced in this chapter <\/h3>\n<div class=\"toc\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/binomial%20distribution\">Binomial distribution<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/coin%20tossing\">coin tossing<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/count%20data\">count data<\/a>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/dna%20evidence\">DNA evidence<\/a><\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/estimate\">estimate<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/mathematics\">mathematics<\/a>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/monty%20hall%20problem\">Monty Hall problem<\/a><\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/opinion%20poll\">opinion poll<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/population\">population<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/r\">R<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/random%20%60noise%27\">random `noise&#039;<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/representative%20sample\">representative sample<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/sample%20size\">sample size<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/standard%20deviation\">standard deviation (s.d., &amp;sigma;)<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/survey%20data\">survey data<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/systematic%20effects\">systematic effects<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/variability\">variability<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/alandix.com\/glossary\/hcistats\/variance\">variance<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n<!-- ?php\n\tif ( @$page['prolog_examples'] ):\n?>\n<h3> Prolog examples (from 1st ed.) <\/h3>\n<!-- ?php\n\techo $page['prolog_examples'];\n?>\n<!-- ?php\n\tendif; \/\/ @$page['prolog_examples']\n? -->\n\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":759,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-763","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":787,"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/763\/revisions\/787"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alandix.com\/statistics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}