Seems Like A Legit Form Of Measurement

Survivorship Bias

I have posted about survivorship bias and how it affects your career choices: how a Hollywood actor giving the classic “follow your dreams and never give up” line is bad advice and is pure survivorship bias at work.

When I read up on the wikipedia page, I encountered an interesting story:

During WWII the US  Air Force wanted to minimize bomber losses to enemy fire. The Center for Naval Analyses ran a research on where bombers tend to get hit with the explicit aim of enforcing the parts of the airframe that is most likely to receive incoming fire. This is what they came up with:

So, they said: the red dots are where bombers are most likely to be hit, so put some more armor on those parts to make the bombers more resilient. That looked like a logical conclusion, until Abraham Wald - a mathematician - started asking questions: 

- how did you obtain that data? - well, we looked at every bomber returning from a raid, marked the damages on the airframe on a sheet and collected the sheets from all allied air bases over months. What you see is the result of hundreds of those sheets. - and your conclusion? - well, the red dots are where the bombers were hit. So let’s enforce those parts because they are most exposed to enemy fire.  - no. the red dots are where a bomber can take a hit and return. The bombers that took a hit to the ailerons, the engines or the cockpit never made it home. That’s why they are absent in your data. The blank spots are exactly where you have to enforce the airframe, so those bombers can return.

This is survivorship bias. You only see a subset of the outcomes. The ones that made it far enough to be visible. Look out for absence of data. Sometimes they tell a story of their own.

BTW: You can see the result of this research today. This is the exact reason the A-10 has the pilot sitting in a titanium armor bathtub and has it’s engines placed high and shielded.

I want to eat healthy, but I also just made a batch of cookies..... I HAVE MADE A HUGE TACTICAL ERROR

hi im auditioning for the role of link from the legend of zelda and i’ll be singing thats not my name by the ting tings

Here ya go Brian

30 Day OC Challenge! by danniichan

My friend David had his ID stolen the other day now we just call him Dav 

This is so pretty!

Rose Shaped Baked Apple Dessert…RECIPE

I just found out that the creator of this amazing recipe has a Tumblr. To see more of her recipes on your dash, go follow her at: ‘cookingwithmanuela.’ Btw, this has so far been the most popular post on beautifulpictureofhealthyfood EVER. It was posted just 17hours ago and it already has 90,000 notes, wow!! :)

I have so many carrots. For my house warming party tomorrow, I’m going to make carrot soup, carrot cake, and cut some carrot sticks, and I’ll still probably have over half of the carrots left. Heeeeeeelp meeeeeeee.