On 28 Dec 2007, at 08:46, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> You may like the Gambler's Fallacy. :)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy
>
I read an interesting study by a statistician some years ago. There is a
common idea among many basketball fans that one might call the "Hot
Hand" theory. When the score is tight and the game possibly in the
balance, they think the team should feed the ball to the player with the
best shooting percentage so far or recently in the game.
The idea is that someone who has been hitting a high % of shots in "on"
in some way and thus the best bet to score now. As a basketball fan,
this fellow set up a season long statistical experiment to determine if
this was true.
The results were unequivocal, the Hot Hand theory was disproved. The
person most likely to hit a "clutch" shot was the one with the best long
term shooting %, regardless of his % in the current game.
So basketball players are statistically like coins.
Moose
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