Yea!!! I just won a $50 bet.

I wrote something earlier that has not yet appeared. Don't know why but the post had to be with anomalies in statistics.

Yea!!! I just won a $50 bet.

My bet was that soon a study would be out showing increased pot was found in accidents.

Now you have to know just a wee bit of statistics to see the big hole in this study. Where are the variables? Oops not there are they?

You introduce a variable such as pot can be used legally, therefore pot will show up more often in the sampling. Now the crux of this little bit of leg pulling is this - the proof that pot was the reason for the crash.

The NHTSA uses the same bad statistical analysis in their alcohol involved accident database. My reason for this belief is this -

Anytime there is an accident and "ANYONE" has alcohol in their blood stream it is noted in the database as alcohol related.

At an accident scene these would be noted as alcohol related -

1. Driver isn't drinking, passenger is drinking
2. Bicyclist is drinking, driver of car is not drinking
3. Pedestrian is walking, driver is not drinking

The stats that we hear on a routine basis about alcohol related accidents contain the above three and more anomalies.

Even peer reviewed articles are suspect. There was a recent scandal that was noted on July 10th 2014. "Scholarly journal retracts 60 articles, smashes ‘peer review ring’"

So read what you will but just understand the question that the client asked the CPA --- client: "what does 2 plus 2 equal?" CPA - "what do you want it to equal?"