I expected Cecil to know the difference between precision and accuracy. While, the article was well written, it probably was written by a mathematician rather than a statistician or engineer familiar with measurements. The statement:
“There’s no such thing as absolute precision.”
makes little sense. Since precisionis about the spread of the data.
Yeah - I know, you’ll say it was written for lay people - but come on …
The article was in fact written by a mathematician instead of by Cecil, namely Dex (AKA C K Dexter Haven), and he got it right: Expressing a number as 2 instead of 2.47 is a lack of precision, not a lack of accuracy.
Are you saying that Cecil Adams, smartest blah blah blah, is not a mathematician? :dubious:
Party line here is that he’s THE guy for EVERYTHING, Bub, and if you do not take that to heart, believe it in your heart, and spread the word of his omniscience everywhere and every day there’s no romm for you on the SDMB.
But does he subcontract math questions to Marilyn?