Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA10844 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 18 Apr 2001 14:06:12 +0100 Subject: RE: Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 09:02:02 -0400 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20010418130220.AAA2056@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 04/18/01 08:49, Vincent Campbell said this-
>There's another reason for this apparent pattern you've not considered- that
>these events were entirely unrelated causally, but only related by the media
>running with a number of conincidental cases, presenting it as part of a
>trend, and over-stating their own involvement in the events.
Finding statistical patterns is a chancy and often errant business, and
assuming you have a random sample is also hard. MIT just did a study of
sickness distribution in Massachusetts that refuted the anecdotal and
reported clusters of disease in the areas of historical industrial waste,
finding instead that with only one exception, the distributions were all
within chance occurance.
Remember there is always an agenda....
- Wade
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