Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 13:53:10 -0400
From: Ted White <tedwhite at compusnet.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Sampling M*A*S*H
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

"Strong, Lee" wrote:

>         Steve makes some important qualifying points.  Blowing off steam on
> one's off hours is necessary, human, and quite O.K. with me.  However, what
> I saw in all the _M*A*S*H_ episodes that I saw was horseplay and
> breezeshooting with the serious business of combat medicine treated as a
> setup for humor.  One scene burned in my memory showed the TV doctors
> skylarking in the operating theater with a patient's chest open.  If that
> was "strictly business when the casualities come in", then I hope that
> everyone involved with the TV series all have doctors just like those they
> depicted.
>         When 100% of a sample shows X with no incidences of not-X, the
> researcher may reasonably conclude that the universe being studied is
> uniformly X.

Bad sample=bad conclusion.   You lose.

--Ted White