Busting the MythBusters' Yawn Experiment

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 23, 2007 @01:22PM from the it's-not-the-company-it's-the-hour dept.

markmcb writes "Most everyone knows and loves the MythBusters, two guys who attempt to set the story straight on things people just take for granted. Well, maybe everyone except Brandon Hansen, who has offered them a taste of their own medicine as he busts the MythBusters' improper use of statistics in their experiment to determine whether yawning is contagious. While the article maintains that the contagion of yawns is still a possibility, Hansen is clearly giving the MythBusters no credit for proving such a claim, 'not with a correlation coefficient of .045835.'"

3 of 397 comments (clear)

Re:Precision? by dgatwood · 2007-04-23 18:16 · Score: 4, Funny

Heck, I yawned when I read the summary.

Uh... wait a second... this is Slashdot. Why are you reading the article!?! :-)

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Re:Submitter gets an F on this one by hmallett · 2007-04-23 21:36 · Score: 5, Funny

(like 1.54 when going between inches and centimeters)

1.54? Are you sure? Do you work for NASA?
Re:Well... by AGMW · 2007-04-24 01:06 · Score: 4, Funny

What I can't work out is whether I'm yawning because I'm reading about yawning, or yawning because I'm reading about statistical analysis.

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