Here's an absurd claim: If you want to estimate a baseball player's true batting average, you should look at wheat prices.
Not metaphorically. Not as a sanity check. Actually use them in your calculation. Your estimate will be more accurate.
This isn't a trick. It's called Stein's Paradox, and it broke statistics in 1956. The proof is airtight. The math is correct. And yet it feels deeply, fundamentally wrong.
Comments
Here's an absurd claim: If you want to estimate a baseball player's true batting average, you should look at wheat prices.
Not metaphorically. Not as a sanity check. Actually use them in your calculation. Your estimate will be more accurate.
This isn't a trick. It's called Stein's Paradox, and it broke statistics in 1956. The proof is airtight. The math is correct. And yet it feels deeply, fundamentally wrong.