Evil Pointy-Haired Boss (who has nothing better to do than sit around flipping coins), challenges
Dilbert to a game of heads-or-tails. In his first ten flips, the coin comes up heads every time
but one. Boss claims to be just lucky, but Dilbert thinks he’s playing with a loaded coin. Who is right?
General Steps |
Does the boss cheat? |
| 1. Decide on a null hypothesis — a "model" that the data should fit | |
| 2. Note your "expected" and "observed" values |
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| 3. Simulate lots of data |
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| 4. Decide what your “threshold of pain” is (otherwise known as a p-value). *Note: technically this should come before simulating your data! |
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| 5. Determine whether the agreement of the simulated data with the observed data falls within the threshhold — if so, we say the model fits the data well. |
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Verdict: The boss cheats (but you knew that already, right?).