[valleygal]

I left earlier around post #790. I haven't even tried to read the thread from there and have no idea what's going on.

What are the odds that this guy on the bike wasn't the shooter. Too weird. We should ask bc. He's had "friendly" arguements about statistics on these threads? Hmmm, bc?
What are you thinking (about the odds of this? :)

[bcoffey]

"What are you thinking (about the odds of this? :) "

Well... (pondering whether to give a technical explanation this late in the evening) ... oh well, you asked what I thought :)

We get confused between the "odds" (probabilities) and the significance we assign events. Our minds are good at picking out patterns, but the patterns could be statistically insignificant yet we assign GREAT significance to them.

Think back to the "pattern" of victims: black, white, black, white... etc. It SEEMED to be important.. until the pattern was broken on Saturday night. Now it seems unimportant and meaningless. The difference is not the probabilities - which remained unchanged - but the significance we assigned to the pattern.

OK.. I think what I just wrote is clear as mud. What do you think, vg?

[per loin]

Too little info to figure odds. 'Bout all we can do is pass on the tidbits that leak out, and speculate.