Randomness, accidents, mistakes and econometrics

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Tue May 11 12:58:20 PDT 1999



>>> "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb at jmu.edu> 05/11/99 01:48PM >>

BTW, for those who come up with half-baked probability calculations and then declare that this could not have been a mistake, I would remind you that the chances of the Three Mile Island accident happening were supposedly something like one-in-ten billion.

((((((((((((((((((

Random Barkley,

Maybe it was a butterfly in China flapping its wings that caused this mistake, this accidental bombing.

Funny how econometrics is used to find order and correlation in plottings of points that seem random. But when it comes to explaining events that look causally connected, you tend to see it as random , an accident.

As Engels said, the laws of nature assert themselves through a series of accidents.

Charles Brown



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