From: "Clay Olbon II" <Clay.Olbon@dynetics.com>
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 03:26:52 +0800
To: "jonathon" <grafolog@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: whitehouse web incident, viva la web revolution
Message-ID: <ADDDA7B6-382D7B@193.239.225.200>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Jonathon,

>	Statistical proof is only accepted in academia.  Depending
>	upon your POV, this may or may not be a good thing, when
>	one is facing civil, or criminal charges.  
>
>	Finding proof for either civil or criminal charges is a 
>	slightly different matter.

IANAL, but your statements are misleading.  Statistics are often used in
both criminal and civil cases.  Look at the DNA evidence in the OJ trial
(OK, maybe a bad example), or the evidence that breast implants don't cause
various ailments (probably another bad example :-).  Both of these examples
are based on statistics.  IMO, part of the problem with juries (and public
discourse in general) today is that anecdotal evidence is often accepted,
when that evidence is clearly not statistically significant.  The examples
I cited previously illustrate this - the four horsemen are a similar
example for public policymaking.  

	Clay

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