04-April-2008, 05:37 PM
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Bowie, MD
Posts: 1,534
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gillianren
Population statistics are numbers. Beak size measurements are numbers. Years are numbers. I joke and say that the reason I took biology and geology for college math is that there's no numbers involved, but it isn't true. The ratio of predators to prey (1:40, I believe, but I could be wrong) is an equation of sorts. I actually had to do by-Gods equations in my oceanography class; we studied tsunami, and we had to work out the length of time it would take for them to travel x distance--and those numbers work.
No, Darwin used numbers, too. He just didn't need calculus for them.
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At a minimum, you need statistics to determine if something observed is significant, or more likely explainable by random chance.
Todd
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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info
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