Posted by Lou Pilder on December 28, 2006, at 20:51:40
In reply to Re: Lou's request for clarification to fayeroe » fayeroe, posted by laima on December 28, 2006, at 19:32:45
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> I think Lou was just trying to explain that a website which welcomes and attracts suicidal posters will have a higher mortality rate than one which bans suicidal posters...BECAUSE it attracts more of them in the first place. And if that doesn't make sense, an anology might be that a website for amateur skydivers will have a higher mortality rate than one for quilting bee enthusiasts. (Or watchers of adventure tv shows.) Whether or not the anology is a good one is uncertain, but that's the gist of it.
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> (Please do correct me if I'm wrong, Lou. But I think this is what you're saying, because I read and understood Dr. Bob's statement the same way you did.)laima,
You wrote,[...because it attracts {>more< of them } in the first place...and if that doesn't make sense, an analogy..skydivers vs quilting bee enthusiasts...I..understand (Dr. Hsiung's)statement >the same way you did<,Lou...].
Thank you for letting me know that you see Dr. Hsiung's statement the same way that I do. And you are correct in thinking that that is what I meant, that if there is a forum that attracts those of that nature,then...
Another way of looking at he grammatical structure of Dr. Hsiung's statement could be in relation to any accusation made to the forum that it causes in any way suicides, and then the maker of the argument points to the fact that there have been members here that have committed suicide.
But looking again at the grammatical structure of Dr. Hsiung's statement;
[..attract suicidal posters(and thereby increase the incidence of suicide {in the group}...].
>First< there is an increase in the {number} of posters of that nature because the word {attract} is there. The grammatical meaning of {attract} is that others come to {the attraction},which {increases the number of , in this case, suicidal posters. Because there is an increase in the {number} of posters of that nature, then it could follow statistically, that the number of actual suicides could increase here, which is written in Dr. Hsiung's statement,{increase the number of suicides >{in the group}<.
My analogy, you saw, was one of IMO simplicity. I could give a much more comprehensive statistical analogy with correlation coefficiants and such. But is this the place for advanced statisitcs or epidemiology?
Then again, if bottomfeeder's interpretation is validated by Dr. Hsiung, that could reverse this entire matter.
Lou's twelth smilely>>[:-)
poster:Lou Pilder
thread:716057
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20061228/msgs/717123.html