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fdupress | 2 years ago

Why do they disagree? Because they are estimates. Which one is correct? Neither and both: they are estimates.

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Konohamaru|2 years ago

Estimate presupposes estimating something in objective reality. Because the verb "to estimate" takes a direct object. Therefore if there are two estimates, and they differ, one is closer to objective reality than the other.

fdupress|2 years ago

Your comment is asking which of two methods of estimating is correct.

Neither is correct, in that neither gives the actual objective truth. Both are correct, in that they both give you estimates that can only be incorrect if they give a zero probability to the actual objective truth.

Even statistically, assume the true value is 0. Is "2 ±5" or "1 ±7" the better estimate? Assume the methods used to derive them consistently yield similar estimates. Which one is the correct method?