Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 11:50:39 06/07/02
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On June 07, 2002 at 05:18:23, José Carlos wrote: > > Dann, I admire your patience. Having to explain the same ideas over and over, >to someone who doesn't want to or can't understand, must be an exasperating >task. And at the same time, some good points are raised by the dissenting voices. The matter of control in an experiment is a crucial one. I have seen many experiments run, even by a staff of PHD's, where the control of the experimental design was a very poor one. We should be forced to think about what is allowed to vary and what must stay the same. We should contemplate what we are measuring and also what we are not able to measure. It is also important to consider the overall experiment in with the conclusions which we want to draw. If more than one thing is allowed to vary, we cannot say which thing caused the improvement. For instance, the program version changes, the opening book changes and the hardware changes. Was it the program version change or the opening book change or the hardware change that resulted in a change in strength? We cannot say. We can only say "This system appears to be stronger than that system" but not 'why' the strength difference appears. One example of this problem is that people will see hardware increase in the SSDF list and use this to make projections about MHz increase to increase in ELO. Unfortunately, other variables have changed at the same time. So we cannot say with any certainty that the strength change was due to the hardware. We tend to make models in our mind and to simplify them to get simple answers. But Einstein said something pertinant: "Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." > If, in addition to the lack of understanding, there's premeditation and will >to mess, the task becomes even harder. > The good thing is that, after so many posts explaining how ELO system works, >there won't be a person on earth who don't understand it ;) > > José C. > >PS.: I kind of enjoy this thread.
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