George Michael - Slashdot User

Busting the MythBusters' Yawn Experiment 397

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 23, 2007 @09:22PM from the it's-not-the-company-it's-the-hour dept.

markmcb writes "Most everyone knows and loves the MythBusters, two guys who attempt to set the story straight on things people just take for granted. Well, maybe everyone except Brandon Hansen, who has offered them a taste of their own medicine as he busts the MythBusters' improper use of statistics in their experiment to determine whether yawning is contagious. While the article maintains that the contagion of yawns is still a possibility, Hansen is clearly giving the MythBusters no credit for proving such a claim, 'not with a correlation coefficient of .045835.'"

Comment Re:Invalid Assumptions (Score 1) 161

by George Michael on Thursday April 19, 2007 @03:21PM (#18802733) Attached to: Windows Buyers Pay Patent Tax of $21.50 ?

3. Microsoft's prices are directly related to their costs, rather than to what they can get away with charging.

You know, I read only the blurbs on most Slashdot stories, and when I don't know any better, those blurbs become part of what I believe to be true about the world. It's disturbing to think about the effect stories like these are having on the collective consciousness. Just one more stupid, wrong thing that soon everyone will "know".

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