Where the Brojos failed at probability analysis of the Boston Marathon

Not the finest couple of days for the brojos. I don't usually like to jump in these threads because they always mean well, but what malmo mentions above and that crap about Ryan Hall telling others to slow down makes me shake my head.

Another demonstration of affirmative action for kids suffering from affluenza.

The product of an American education

Thanks for pointing this out, Malmo. I agree that their probability "methodology" was painful. But at least the BroJos are not--in contrast to about half of the posters around here--claiming that the race was fixed by a mysterious cabal consisting of the BAA, the CIA, international banks, and East African distance runners.

Trollie McSockpuppet wrote:

Thanks for pointing this out, Malmo. I agree that their probability "methodology" was painful. But at least the BroJos are not--in contrast to about half of the posters around here--claiming that the race was fixed by a mysterious cabal consisting of the BAA, the CIA, international banks, and East African distance runners.

What is notably absent from your post is any notion of truth.

Unless you would like to point out where someone claimed that the race was fixed "by a mysterious cabal consisting of the BAA, the CIA, international banks and East African distance runners".

I'll be waiting.

Some Things Should Be Obvious wrote:

Trollie McSockpuppet wrote:

Thanks for pointing this out, Malmo. I agree that their probability "methodology" was painful. But at least the BroJos are not--in contrast to about half of the posters around here--claiming that the race was fixed by a mysterious cabal consisting of the BAA, the CIA, international banks, and East African distance runners.

What is notably absent from your post is any notion of truth.

Unless you would like to point out where someone claimed that the race was fixed "by a mysterious cabal consisting of the BAA, the CIA, international banks and East African distance runners".

I'll be waiting.

Dude, check out pages 10 and 11 of the "Official 'The Boston Marathon Was Fixed' thread." Yep, people seriously contemplate the involvement of the CIA and secret banks. Sad.

Don't worry, STSBO. I am sure your conspiracy theory is far more nuanced. You're a frickin genius.

Malmo, it's great to see you.

Trollie McSockpuppet wrote:

Thanks for pointing this out, Malmo. I agree that their probability "methodology" was painful. But at least the BroJos are not--in contrast to about half of the posters around here--claiming that the race was fixed by a mysterious cabal consisting of the BAA, the CIA, international banks, and East African distance runners.

If you think that the TSA isn't involved, then your crazy. How did they get there? That's right airplanes. Where did they come from? The future. Who's stealing your luggage off of airplanes? That's right, the T-S-A. Where did the TSA come from? That's right, McDonalds rejects. It's all part of the cosmic unconsciousness. Like when you think about Meb, or shrimp, and all of a sudden there's Meb is eating a plate of shrimp. See?...

What do you think the lunar ellipsis was about? ...blood moon...every six months...Jewish Holidays...four of them...2014 to 2015...

I do all of my best thinking on the bus.

malmo wrote:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/04/can-american-win-end-30-race-drought-win-boston-yes-telling-theres-chance/

"In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory" - Martin Gardner

Your mistake was presuming the brojos to be experts of some kind.

malmo wrote:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/04/can-american-win-end-30-race-drought-win-boston-yes-telling-theres-chance/

"In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory" - Martin Gardner

might be wejo wrote:

Your mistake was presuming the brojos to be experts of some kind.

Your mistake was presuming that I think that they are experts on probability. The quote was put there to contrast the difficulty that experts have with probability to theirs.

Good to see you on the boards, Malmo. Is Ron Tabb part of the conspiracy? [had no idea he & Meb were pals until today.]

Did you predict Meb would win in such a slow time?

Meb won in a very fast time. I don't understand why more Brits don't run Boston so they can understand for themselves.

I don't think their analysis is as bad as you think. There is no good way to extrapolate accurately from a population of 3 races. Assigning the prob that they run slower than 2:07 = 0.0% would be the end of the article, and a useless article when we all know the probability is higher than 0.

Taking the total sub-2:07 success rate of the 2:07 capable runners and applying it to everyone, while not great, is better than taking each one individually. Taking into account the very limited amount of data they had to work with I can't think of a much more accurate way to do the calculations.

dkny64 wrote:

Good to see you on the boards, Malmo. Is Ron Tabb part of the conspiracy? [had no idea he & Meb were pals until today.]

Tabb coached Meb when he was in high school.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Did you predict Meb would win in such a slow time?

What is slow about his time? Are you new to the sport, son?

malmo wrote:

dkny64 wrote:

Good to see you on the boards, Malmo. Is Ron Tabb part of the conspiracy? [had no idea he & Meb were pals until today.]

Tabb coached Meb when he was in high school.

Indeed - but I only learned that today. I know you and Tabb are [or at least were] pals - did you have occasion to meet Meb back in his HS days?

V1per41 wrote:

I don't think their analysis is as bad as you think. There is no good way to extrapolate accurately from a population of 3 races. Assigning the prob that they run slower than 2:07 = 0.0% would be the end of the article, and a useless article when we all know the probability is higher than 0.

Taking the total sub-2:07 success rate of the 2:07 capable runners and applying it to everyone, while not great, is better than taking each one individually. Taking into account the very limited amount of data they had to work with I can't think of a much more accurate way to do the calculations.

Oh my freaking god.

V1per41 wrote:

I can't think of a much more accurate way to do the calculations.

This isn't even a way to make calculations.

I'll repeat. Determining the probability of event B happening today is not the product of the complementary probabilities of two or more events that have happened in the past.

Been here a long time wrote:

Not the finest couple of days for the brojos. I don't usually like to jump in these threads because they always mean well, but what malmo mentions above and that crap about Ryan Hall telling others to slow down makes me shake my head.

The two pieces you talk about are two of the one's I'm most proud of.

David Esptein, author of SPorts Gene, loved the math one. Of course it's not independent and we said as such. It's also not independent becasue like yesterday, everyone goes out slow or fast together.

We said that was way low.

The point of the piece was just to get you to think. Obviuosly when we have a range of 1 to 30 and to 1 to 19,000 - we aren't being scientific.

Also tilastapaja normally doesn't include DNFS which is what top Africans often do.