1.3 KiB
id, aliases, title, tags, dg-publish, daily, yearly
| id | aliases | title | tags | dg-publish | daily | yearly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-01-25T22:59:00-05:00 | 2026-01-25 22:59:?? |
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true | 2026-01-25 | 2026 |
2026-01-25 22:59:??
Judgmental Decomposition
macgregor_1994_judgmental-decomposition
I really hate this study.
I may be out of my league, but it seems wrong to draw conclusions about decomposition as a method when the work was done by the researchers, especially when some of their decompositions really suck.
Circumference of 50¢ coin
- Diameter in inches of a 50¢ coin
- Number of pieces of string the length of the diameter needed to wrap around circumference
That's not a decomposition.
If you don't remember \pi
that's a harder problem than it was before.
Bushels of wheat
- Population of the world
- Number of bushels of wheat consumed per person per year
- Proportion of wheat wasted per year
I might have included how much a bushel is,1 there's an order of magnitude right there.
The study suggests decomposition has no effect on estimate confidence ---which I'm tempted to believe because its funny and it tracks with my anecdotal experience--- but I wonder if subjects using their own decompositions would present similarly.
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1~\text{US bushel} \equiv 9\frac{3571}{11550}~\text{US Gallons} \approx 9.3~\text{US Gallons}↩︎