rage, under the assumptions, unobjectionable in many contexts, that there is such a "true" value, and that the samples are independent and normally distributed with equal variance. As such, unless the data on Cueball's paper contain many small groups which radically violate these assumptions somehow, there is no way Cueball's data could falsify the t distribution. In particular, a single number (for the average of one group) or a small set of numbers (for the averages of several numbers) will never make a nice smooth curve, but an average statistician would see that as normal statistical noise that would even out over time, not as a reason to prefer a complex, spiky curve such as the supposed "teacher's" distribution. But of course, Cueball's access to a secret, cooler-looking distribution makes them more badass than a mere average statistician... or does it?
Ironically, the Teacher's T Distribution shows equal variance, itself proving the appropriateness of the Student's T Distribution.
The title text plays on the word "test". The first part of the sentence refers to a potential "Teacher t-test" which would be used in a statistical context to test for the significance of some observation, as opposed to the real "Student's t-test" which is used to determine if two sets of data differ by a statistically significant amount. On the other hand, the second part of the sentence refers to the possibility for students to take tests (or exams) until they pass - or to teachers who forces students to take the test again and again until they pass. The resulting sentence may refer to statistical fallacy, or the (conscious or unconscious) action of manipulating observations or misconducting experiments to give statistical significance to a false fact.
- [A physical bell-curve-shaped object labeled "Student's t distribution" is resting on a table. Cueball is working with it and a piece of paper.]
- Cueball: hmm
- [Cueball looks at the piece of paper.]
- Cueball: ...nope.
- [Cueball picks up the object and begins to walk off the panel with it.]
- [Cueball comes back onto the panel, now carrying an object shaped like a much more complex curve, with many symmetric spikes and dips, labeled "Teacher's t distribution".]
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22.214.171.124 05:20, 26 March 2014 (UTC)Adam
As a layman, I still have no idea what the comic's about. Is it possible to clear it up a lot more? LogicalOxymoron (talk) 05:37, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I think this is a comment of the quality of education today - it is difficult to grade students on a distribution curve and even more so when you take into account the distribution curve of the teachers ability. 126.96.36.199 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- I thought this as well, my interpretation of the comic was Cueball attempting to fit the data with a "Student t-distribution", realizing that the t-distribution poorly fit, and so replaced it with a "Teacher t-distribution" which has a stronger correlation with the data on the piece of paper presumably; the data in question concerning the scholastic success of students. This comic in part seemed to be poking fun at scientists misappropriating the causation of a recognized phenomena. Like the basic statistics example of people finding a correlation in children between tooth decay and vocabulary when, surprise surprise, both tooth decay and vocabulary are strongly correlated with age. 188.8.131.52 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I noticed the teacher's curve is symmetrical, and after further inspection it could be interpreted as an edge detection: high values show where an edge occurs. The two highest peaks would nicely align with the edges of the paper, the next highest peaks fit the edges of the table, and the rest could be approximation artefacts, as they're equidistant and rather insignificant compared to those four. I'm not statistics pro, but maybe that rings someone's bells? 184.108.40.206 07:56, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
- Interesting observation. It may play into an age-long legend told 