Survivor bias makes streaks look like skill even under pure chance

Evidence

Replying to Jensen, Buffet did not dismiss the latter’s unflattering analogy out of hand. If all the inhabitants of the United States were to begin a cointossing game in which those who called wrongly, even once, were thrown out of the game, after twenty rounds there would still remain some 215 players who had called successfully twenty times in a row It would be easy to imagine that this successful few had superior predictive skills. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 344

Categorization

• XREF: The cointossing survivor-bias logic parallels the law-merchant and social-capital material reader has worked through — visible outcomes hide the selection process that produced them. — connects to: Survivor bias distorts the study of religious success; Some false positives during threshold testing indicate healthy response bias — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 347; Small founder samples make artificial selection results vulnerable to chance — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 291

Broader Connections

• Small founder samples make artificial selection results vulnerable to chance #exemplifies (0.85) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 291
• Survivor bias distorts the study of religious success #exemplifies (0.80)
• Some false positives during threshold testing indicate healthy response bias #qualifies (0.75) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 347