Skip to main content
Post Made Community Wiki by whuber
commented on how the example relates to model overfitting
Source Link

"Agh! Pat is leaving the company. How are we ever going to find a replacement?"

Job Posting:

Wanted: Electrical Engineer. 42 year old androgynous person with degrees in Electrical Engineering, mathematics, and animal husbandry. Must be 68 inches tall with brown hair, a mole over the left eye, and prone to long winded diatribes against geese and misuse of the word 'counsel'.

In a mathematical sense, overfitting often refers to making a model with more parameters than are necessary, resulting in a better fit for a specific data set, but without capturing relevant details necessary to fit other data sets from the class of interest.

In the above example, the poster is unable to differentiate the relevant from irrelevant characteristics. The resulting qualifications are likely only met by the one person that they already know is right for the job (but no longer wants it).

"Agh! Pat is leaving the company. How are we ever going to find a replacement?"

Job Posting:

Wanted: Electrical Engineer. 42 year old androgynous person with degrees in mathematics and animal husbandry. Must be 68 inches tall and prone to long winded diatribes against geese and misuse of the word 'counsel'.

"Agh! Pat is leaving the company. How are we ever going to find a replacement?"

Job Posting:

Wanted: Electrical Engineer. 42 year old androgynous person with degrees in Electrical Engineering, mathematics, and animal husbandry. Must be 68 inches tall with brown hair, a mole over the left eye, and prone to long winded diatribes against geese and misuse of the word 'counsel'.

In a mathematical sense, overfitting often refers to making a model with more parameters than are necessary, resulting in a better fit for a specific data set, but without capturing relevant details necessary to fit other data sets from the class of interest.

In the above example, the poster is unable to differentiate the relevant from irrelevant characteristics. The resulting qualifications are likely only met by the one person that they already know is right for the job (but no longer wants it).

Source Link

"Agh! Pat is leaving the company. How are we ever going to find a replacement?"

Job Posting:

Wanted: Electrical Engineer. 42 year old androgynous person with degrees in mathematics and animal husbandry. Must be 68 inches tall and prone to long winded diatribes against geese and misuse of the word 'counsel'.