#DFG: Canceling the Noise
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This New Yorker story is a good overview with some links:Section15Box113 said:
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want-to-be-right
That is correct. Let's recycle this point yet again.JimBoSox9 said:
The assumptions tested by Exponent were provided by Paul Weiss' team. The conclusion that the non-logo gauge was used did not come from exponent, it was an assumption provided to Exponent by Paul Weiss' team.
The introduction in the Exponent report contradicts Wells testimony during the arbitration hearing regarding whether exponent's report was independent. I have no idea why Kessler didn't push wells on this during the hearing (I speculated professional courtesy at the time).
Dan Patrick has been all over this. Keeps clarifying that they (the Colts) never knew for sure, but they were taking precautions. One of the minions said, "isn't it clear, at this point, that the Pats are in the Colts heads', and have been for years?" Patrick agreed.jimbobim said:
Of course, Patrick follows up with, "Would you put anything past the Patriots at this point?"
This really had the potential to be the nail that fell out of the shoe of the horse of the king. The whole case against Brady comes undone if you challenge this corrupt decision to assume that Walt Anderson misremembered. I wonder whether the NFLPA has missed the boat in not stressing this more.
jimbobim said:
I almost posted earlier about this. Dungy was on the Dan Patrick Show today and DP was pressing him on whether he had knowledge of the Pats doing shady things when he was the coach. There was an old Peter King report saying the Colts suspected the Pats of bugging their locker room when they were in NE to learn about their game plan and Peyton would go to the corridor to avoid this.
Dungy basically confirmed they were suspicious but offered up 0 proof other than to say something along the lines of "we had a few ex-Patriots players who told us to watch out for certain things" and later tried to say things like, "you have to be suspicious of everyone, not just the Pats" but didn't give an example of another team doing something similar. It was a really annoying interview because it was all innuendo and hearsay and Dungy had no problem not confirming...but pretty much confirming...that the Pats were
Two things.
1. Tony Dungy gets away with a lot of crap because of his "holier than thou" "good christian" "folksy with the media" persona. Infuriating and insane how obvious it is. The media loves him, and he loves the media. It's a nice two way street. It's also why he will probably end up in the HoF someday, and I think he's borderline at best.
2. These reports go to show how much the Patriots are into other teams heads. They don't even have to do anything, and we have people running around wasting time trying to guard against things that aren't happening. Of course, the only team that I can recall that was actually bugging rooms? The Saints and Mickey Loomis. I think there was talk about Pioli in Chiefs land, but not sure. Yet it's the Patriots as the serial cheaters.
I mean it's out there. I mean it's out there, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
<shrugs>
1. Tony Dungy gets away with a lot of crap because of his "holier than thou" "good christian" "folksy with the media" persona. Infuriating and insane how obvious it is. The media loves him, and he loves the media. It's a nice two way street. It's also why he will probably end up in the HoF someday, and I think he's borderline at best.
2. These reports go to show how much the Patriots are into other teams heads. They don't even have to do anything, and we have people running around wasting time trying to guard against things that aren't happening. Of course, the only team that I can recall that was actually bugging rooms? The Saints and Mickey Loomis. I think there was talk about Pioli in Chiefs land, but not sure. Yet it's the Patriots as the serial cheaters.
I mean it's out there. I mean it's out there, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
<shrugs>
I don't know where you're getting this idea from. According to the Wells Report, Exponent tested with both gauges and the conclusion that the Non-Logo Gauge was likely used was based on Exponent testing (see pg. 116 of Wells report). Even if you think this was a bag job from the beginning, Paul Weiss is not a science firm - how are they going to know which gauge is going to make sense for their results? Maybe they told Exponent what outcome they wanted and that steered Exponent to their conclusion that the Non-Logo gauge was used, but your statement is baseless as far as I can tell.EricFeczko said:
EricFeczko said:
Hoya81 said:It's true.
edit: corrected. Page 15 of the exponent report, 175-177 of the Wells.
ImageUploadedBySons of Sam Horn1440083667.818525.jpg
Not only did they shift the gauge by .2, and play with the angle to appear less bent, but the scale for both pictures is off by a lot! There is almost a 15% difference in scale (the smaller needle appearing 15% larger than it is as shot).
Matt Taibbi on Dan Patrick this morning. He had two great lines...
On whether or not the fans really care about Deflategate or if this is just a media created story: "There's two groups of fans. There's New England fans who are like a late stage Lenny Bruce at this point. Completely obsessed with the injustice of it all."
On how Patriot fans felt when Kraft decided not to object to Goodell's team penalties: "They were furious when that happened. For them this is like Williams Wallace. They want to fight to the death on this thing and Kraft didn't do that."
Can't post the link to the interview because it's not up yet. I took the quotes off the DirecTV simulcast.
On whether or not the fans really care about Deflategate or if this is just a media created story: "There's two groups of fans. There's New England fans who are like a late stage Lenny Bruce at this point. Completely obsessed with the injustice of it all."
On how Patriot fans felt when Kraft decided not to object to Goodell's team penalties: "They were furious when that happened. For them this is like Williams Wallace. They want to fight to the death on this thing and Kraft didn't do that."
Can't post the link to the interview because it's not up yet. I took the quotes off the DirecTV simulcast.
sittingstill said:
Here's another one.
http://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-Part-2-Familiarity-Backfire-Effect.html
Super Nomario said:
They came to that conclusion based on the temperature and timing assumptions they got from Paul, Weiss.
Of course in real life Paul, Weiss tells them the result they want and then Paul, Weiss and exponent go back and forth on what assumptions Paul, Weiss is going to give exponent to make exponent's model work. That's how these things go.
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:An interesting read about the Exponent evidence regarding the gauges in the Wells report:
Jesus Christ, they deliberately moved the ruler to make the gauges appear similar. Remember, Andersen says he thought he used one gauge but the Wells report insisted he actually used the other.
Here's what the gauges looked like when not shot to seem straight:
You think Andersen wouldn't remember which one he used now?
The league office is LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH.
That's the shit Florio needs to show.
Chad Finn @GlobeChadFinn 59s59 seconds ago
The Patriots asked ESPN to correct its erroneous references to the retracted Herald story from 2002. ESPN didn't do it on its own volition.
The Patriots asked ESPN to correct its erroneous references to the retracted Herald story from 2002. ESPN didn't do it on its own volition.
(too slow)
Goes to show what the Patriots are up against. They had to ask ESPN to correct the Spygate story. They didn't do it on their own volition.
Goes to show what the Patriots are up against. They had to ask ESPN to correct the Spygate story. They didn't do it on their own volition.
Here is another example of Exponent's shenanigans.
Figure 25:
There are a bunch of figures similar to this, and they represent ball warming/pressure increases once the balls were brought indoors at halftime. The gist is that the horizontal line at the bottom (representing the mean pressure of the Pats balls at halftime) only slightly overlaps the bottom curved lines. The curved lines represent the predicted gradual pressure increase over time in the locker room.
This lack of overlap is supposed to point to guilt.
But, in footnote 42:
The shaded area around the horizontal line is actually the standard error (SE), not the standard deviation (SD). Standard error is a measure of how far your calculated mean is likely to be from the actual population mean. It is not a good representation of data variability or scatter. Standard deviation is used for that.
SE is smaller than SD, in that it is equal to SD divided by sqrt(N), where N = the number of balls.
You can reverse estimate the SD from this graph, assuming the SE is around 0.1 psi (the shaded area is +/- 2 SEs).
That would result in an SD of 0.332 psi.
I've put these values on the Exponent Fig. 25 graph, below:
I put 2 SDs on the graph because 95% of readings should be within 2 SD of the mean, and only 68% within 1 SD.
Regardless, Exponent seems to have purposely put in a smaller error range in order to make the overlap smaller.
Furthermore, there is no error represented in the curved lines. The shaded area represents the wetness of the balls. Exponent is trying to tell us that a dry ball should be on the solid curved line, a wet ball on the dotted line, and in between are balls in various levels of dampness. What should be on this graph are error bars for each of the curved lines, which would make the range of readings wider, and thus the overlap between the horizontal and curved lines greater.
I'll also add that it is unacceptable to have multiple shaded areas on a graph and have them mean different things without clearly pointing out the two different meanings. They didn't do this and it's obvious the reason was to mislead readers.
Figure 25:
There are a bunch of figures similar to this, and they represent ball warming/pressure increases once the balls were brought indoors at halftime. The gist is that the horizontal line at the bottom (representing the mean pressure of the Pats balls at halftime) only slightly overlaps the bottom curved lines. The curved lines represent the predicted gradual pressure increase over time in the locker room.
This lack of overlap is supposed to point to guilt.
But, in footnote 42:
The shaded area around the horizontal line is actually the standard error (SE), not the standard deviation (SD). Standard error is a measure of how far your calculated mean is likely to be from the actual population mean. It is not a good representation of data variability or scatter. Standard deviation is used for that.
SE is smaller than SD, in that it is equal to SD divided by sqrt(N), where N = the number of balls.
You can reverse estimate the SD from this graph, assuming the SE is around 0.1 psi (the shaded area is +/- 2 SEs).
That would result in an SD of 0.332 psi.
I've put these values on the Exponent Fig. 25 graph, below:
I put 2 SDs on the graph because 95% of readings should be within 2 SD of the mean, and only 68% within 1 SD.
Regardless, Exponent seems to have purposely put in a smaller error range in order to make the overlap smaller.
Furthermore, there is no error represented in the curved lines. The shaded area represents the wetness of the balls. Exponent is trying to tell us that a dry ball should be on the solid curved line, a wet ball on the dotted line, and in between are balls in various levels of dampness. What should be on this graph are error bars for each of the curved lines, which would make the range of readings wider, and thus the overlap between the horizontal and curved lines greater.
I'll also add that it is unacceptable to have multiple shaded areas on a graph and have them mean different things without clearly pointing out the two different meanings. They didn't do this and it's obvious the reason was to mislead readers.
I know it's not feasible and all, but I really wish the Pats could pull all credentials from ESPN.
I'm not going to cite the entire PDF, but go and re-read exponent's executive summary, and then re-read wells testimony:Super Nomario said:
I have no idea what happened, and I never have said that this was a bag job (I did argue that Exponent's work was sloppy and disingenuous, but that had to do with the statistical analysis, not this). What I did say is that Wells' testimony at the hearing suggests that Exponent was an independent expert, whereas Exponent's report clearly stated that it relied on Wells to make some conclusions. I was sort of surprised that Kessler didn't push Wells' on Exponent's independence as an expert.
Ostensibly the conclusion as to gauge used was based on relation to the "master gauge" (i.e., true pressure).Shelterdog said:
This I buy.Shelterdog said:
I'm still confused as to what you see as the smoking gun here.EricFeczko said:
This is Exponent's statement, not Paul Weiss', and I read it as Exponent is making that conclusion. Maybe you think they're lying or being disingenuous or whatever, but you stated, "The conclusion that the non-logo gauge was used did not come from exponent, it was an assumption provided to Exponent by Paul Weiss' team." and the Wells Report says differently.
I still don't understand that explanation from Exponent. It doesn't make any sense. In essence it seems like they are saying:
A) Logo reads .35 avg higher
B) Non-logo reads closer to calibrated gauge
C) Logo always reads higher than non-logo
=
non-Logo was used.
How is this at all logical or proof of anything?
Also, I think EricFeczko is saying this is the proof that Exponent relied on Wells:
"This conclusion is based on data provided to us by Paul, Weiss and data generated by our experiments."
A) Logo reads .35 avg higher
B) Non-logo reads closer to calibrated gauge
C) Logo always reads higher than non-logo
=
non-Logo was used.
How is this at all logical or proof of anything?
Also, I think EricFeczko is saying this is the proof that Exponent relied on Wells:
"This conclusion is based on data provided to us by Paul, Weiss and data generated by our experiments."
Super Nomario said:
You're right that I misspoke earlier. What I should've said is that Exponent's conclusion regarding which gauge was used is based upon the assumptions ("data") provided by Paul Weiss's team. If that is what a "court-appointed" expert is supposed to do, then I'm wrong. I thought a "court-appointed" expert looks at all the data provided by the "judge" and makes a conclusion.
EDIT: Tims beat me to it. I still wanted to rephrase my earlier statement, though. The quotes I use come from Wells' own words during the hearing regarding how he considered Exponent's hiring; it is not intended as sarcasm.
tims4wins said:
As I read their report their conclusion is that the non-logo gauged was used because the numbers Anderson says he remembers are the same numbers that the Colts and Pats targeted, and that's like totally unlikely unless he used the non logo gauge because otherwise the pressures he remembers would be .3 PSI off of whatever the Colts and Pats said they used.
Yes, the Wells Report does a horrible job of explaining this. Basically, they are assuming as fact that rhe Pats balls came in at 12.5 psi and the Colts at 13.0'because that's what both teams said they did, using a third gauge. That third gauge was never found, but they are saying it is is less likely that 2 out of the 3 gauges used to measure balls that day were off true ("master") pressure by the same amount.tims4wins said:
There are many holes in that argument, but it is somewhat defensible.
EricFeczko said:
I thought Exponent was saying that Walt was most likely mistaken about using the higher-reading gauge since the Pats said they set the balls to 12.5 and (if his gauge recollection was correct) Walt would have noticed the Pats footballs were reading around 12.9 in his pre-game check and not the 12.5 or 12.6 he claimed he observed. Of course, Exponent conveniently ignored the likely reality that Walt checked only a couple of balls and did a squeeze or eyeball test on the rest.
The funny thing about Pope Dumbo whining about being scared of the Pats rigging the locker rooms is that the Saints actually did that in 2012, and nobody cared. Bountygate was 1000000000000000 times the issue that taping an opponent's locker room was.
It reads 0.35 "high," not "higher." That is, the 0.35 isn't just relative to the other gauge, it's relative to what in reality was the true pressure of the footballs.tims4wins said:
Yeah, of course there was data provided by Wells. Exponent didn't oversee the pre-game measurements of the footballs or the halftime measurements, or record timing or pressure data at halftime, or see where the balls were kept pregame or measured at halftime or what the procedure was to do any of that stuff. It's fair to argue (and I would) that it's a "garbage-in garbage-out" operation and Exponent shouldn't have drawn the conclusions they did from the scanty information they had, but the fact that they were provided information is not in-and-of-itself controversial or suspect. It's just reality - Exponent wasn't there that day and so any information about what happened that day had to come from someone else.tims4wins said:
Furthermore, they are assuming it because that information came from Paul Weiss' team.djbayko said:
I don't want to go through this again, but a qualified expert would take one look at the data available and state that no conclusions can be made because the data were insufficient and the assumptions egregious. Whether you want to blame that on sloppy science by Exponent or a consipiracy between Wells and Exponent is one thing. However, there is no question that the report's conclusions are dependent upon the interpretations of witness statements made by Wells' team and not the statements themselves. Namely, the assumption that the pats, colts, and Walt used gauges that had the same error to measure PSI.
I missed this lovely line from Cardinal Homophobe:
Dungy is so bitter, and he's as overrated as they come.
So, he's insinuating that former Pats players told Manning the Pats bugged the locker room? Yeah, ok, I'm sure Belichick is telling his players he tapes locker rooms and it's managed to stay behind closed doors for 15 years.
Dungy is so bitter, and he's as overrated as they come.
Ed Hillel said:
Wait, was that actually confirmed? There were some allegations against Mickey Loomis, but I didn't think they went anywhere.
This is the essence of Roderick McKinnon's rebuttal of Exponent in The Wells Report in Contexf. He doesn't do an exhaustive point-for-point attack on Exponent's science. Instead, he argues that the data is garbage, and GIGO, so it doesn't really matter what Exponent says at all.EricFeczko said:
Like I said, there are holes in Exponent's argument. However, if you accept the input data as valid - which Wells / Exponent obviously did - their argument is *somewhat* defensible.
It's actually heart warming to see Belichick get accused of the same kind of shenanigans that they routinely accused Red Auerbach of.
Is there a bigger phony in sports than Tony Dungy?
Is there a bigger phony in sports than Tony Dungy?
It looks like the Louisiana State Police investigated after the ESPN Outside the Lines story and found no evidence that it occured nor was there evidence of the infrastructure to have ever done so.AB in DC said:
I suspect that it was all part of the NFL misinformation pipeline with ESPN to try teams in the court of public opinion. Something we all know about all too well.
cshea said:
You know what's funny about all this? The ESPN Boston satellite office is literally located within Gillette Stadium (ESPNBoston-dot-com's mailing address is One Patriot Place). I'm assuming ESPN rents the space or has some other kind of arrangement with Kraft. And based on this Kraft Group job posting, ESPN Boston's arrangement would appear to include some form of contract staffing involving Kraft employees.
Now I doubt the Krafts have an issue with any of the people working out of the ESPN Boston office, such as Reiss, but I'm guessing it may get a little awkward when it comes time to renew the lease with the suits in Bristol.
Which party are you referring to in regards to going to ESPN? Are you insinuating that the Patriots think Brady is going to lose or do you think the NFL is acting like they think they'll lose?dcmissle said:
djbayko said:
You can't accept the input data as valid. That is the biggest trick Exponent played in this whole affair.
We have no actual pressure measurements for the balls pregame. This is a huge amount of uncertainty. But Exponent ran their statistical analyses and based their conclusions on the assumption that the Patriots balls were at 12.50 psi. Not the average of the balls, mind you,but the assumption that each ball was at exactly 12.50 psi.
Thus, there is no error included in any calculation they did that involved the starting pressures.
Look at Table A-1 as an example of how they present such data.
troparra said:
This is what I believe he means. Exponent just did what they were told and it is *somewhat* defensible. Wells is the one who gave them the garbage numbers in order to manipulate the result.
The NFL is behaving as if it believes it will lose. The Manning stuff -- channeled through Saint Tony Dungy -- is quite something. ESPN issued its apology and retraction of the other stuff at 12:20 am.RedOctober3829 said:
I view self serving coincidence with a very skeptical eye. Vlad Putin really should buy ESPN when oil revenues recover. They are quite good at the dark arts.
Not to rehash too much.troparra said:
But the other trick. Was changing the experiment because the Colts balls no longer made sense.
They altered time and temperature readings to make the Colts balls fit. It was in one of the temp and transient experiments.
Paraphrasing "if we had run this experiment with the same variables as the previous experiment. The colt balls wouldn't have fit into our graphs. So we lowered teh starting temp (or increased it) to get them within range"
I'd have to go back and dig through my notes that I don't have in front of me right now. It was pretty bad science and experiment design. I just remembered it jumped off the page at me and pointed to a group looking for specific results versus trying to find out what happened.
dcmissle said:
I'm not sure if the court will pay attention to this stuff or attribute it to the NFL being ESPN's puppet masters. It's all over for the NFL if the court is this engaged.
But I bet the leak about Brady willing to accept games probably caught the courts attention. (Assuming the leak is false, which is what I believe.)
Edit: should we move this discussion outside of this thread? I'm afraid we're going to get yelled at.
dcmissle said:
They're really not, though. Florio just tore them a new one over the apology thing, it's so poor and transparent in conjunction with Dungy's shiv that it betray's ESPN's unwieldiness as a cohesive advocacy organ. Yeah, they had a nice run with controlled leaks back in the beginning, when the other side hadn't even realized there was a war on, but since Yee and Kraft got replaced by wartime consiglieris, it's a clown show. Compared to a professional political hit job, this is amateur hour.