From: John Bois <jbois@umd5.umd.edu>
Reply-To: jbois@umd5.umd.edu
To: David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
CC: The Dinosaur Mailing List <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: Mass Extinction Statistics
Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 23:12:51 -0400 (EDT)
On Thu, 24 May 2001, David Marjanovic wrote:
> > I put up 500,000 black dots and 500,000 red dots on my board. I have
a
> > cannon that fires 500,000 bullets at once.
>
> I'd rather say you have a big bomb rather than exactly 500,000
individual
> bullets. You let the bomb detonate, and then you look if you find a
pattern
> among the unhit dots.
Well, whatever the delivery mechanism, it should have a random
effect--perhaps more diffuse than a bomb--after all, the placentals are
not all living together in one happy bunker, nor the marsupials. There
are millions (probably) of organisms in many niches.
> > Given our assumption of equal population number, equal
> > susceptibility, etc., is this not a fair analogy? And isn't it true
that
> > the more dots I have, the greater my chance of reaching 50/50?
>
> The more times you fire the cannon, not the more dots you have.
Several have said this. Why? What's the difference whether I increase
the population or the number of bolide strikes? Flipping a
flippin' coin a hundred times is the same as flipping 100 flippin' coins
once.