Timeline for Chances of being ill on Fridays
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 23, 2018 at 7:13 | comment | added | The Archetypal Paul | @Jim, I don't think it will, but agree | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 23:31 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackStats/status/976964692500467713 | ||
| Mar 22, 2018 at 21:54 | comment | added | Jim | If this were to escalate into an official investigation by the authorities, my advice would be to leave the burden of proof with the accuser. Let them prove that there is "a pattern" and that it is anomalous. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 21:14 | comment | added | The Archetypal Paul | @whuber, agreed. but I don't think I'd get anywhere argung that with the authorities... | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 21:05 | comment | added | whuber♦ | Perhaps the right way to frame the question is to ask "what is the chance that the authorities in this school, should they choose to look, would notice some anomalous imbalance in absences of some sort--by day of week, month, proximity to holidays, or whatever--among one or more students." The answer is likely almost 100%. It's not obtained through a simple model, simulation, or chi-squared test, but rather by careful consideration of the many processes that lead people to notice coincidences. See David Hand, The Improbability Principle, for a recent account. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 20:24 | answer | added | cangrejo | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 20:02 | comment | added | The Archetypal Paul | @StephanKolassa :) Yep, that's pretty much what I think it is happening. My son has only one less Tuesday off ill than Fridays, so it seems pretty certain it's just a statistical fluke. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:53 | comment | added | Stephan Kolassa | Obligatory Dilbert cartoon. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:46 | comment | added | kjetil b halvorsen♦ | with some more realistic assumptions we could run a simulation. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:44 | comment | added | The Archetypal Paul | @TIm, I think that's an unknown here. I only have the observation that he's been ill on M of N days. EDIT: It turns out that boys are absent with illness for 2.9% of the days on average in secondary schools: gov.uk/government/statistics/…. No idea on the distribution though. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:38 | comment | added | The Archetypal Paul | @Aksakal, if I want a realistic answer, agreed. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:28 | answer | added | Nuclear Hoagie | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:28 | comment | added | Aksakal | You can't assume indendence and uniformity, unfortunately. In fact, it would have not been in your favor. To me it's likely that on Fri kids have more chance to get sick than on any other day for several reasons. For instance, they're more tired after school week, or they've been exposed to more sick people during the week than during the weekend etc. So, you need to understand the weekly and seasonal patterns in absence rates, then somehow apply them to your son. What fs he has sinus and more likely to catch cold than others, and it's probably going to peak on Fri | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:26 | comment | added | The Archetypal Paul | Let's assume independence, uniform distribution, and illnesses last one day. If I'm sttill missing data, please let me know. I'm (probably) not actually going to take this to the authorities, I'm mostly curious. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:24 | comment | added | Tim | Is it a theoretical question, making all kind of unrealistic assumptions like uniform distribution, independence, illnesses that can long for any random number of days? Or maybe you want a realistic estimate? If the second, we probably don't have enough data as this will depend on many factors. | |
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:22 | review | First posts | |||
| Mar 22, 2018 at 20:11 | |||||
| Mar 22, 2018 at 19:18 | history | asked | The Archetypal Paul | CC BY-SA 3.0 |