Beware of the law of small numbers
WHILE doing a spur-ofthe-moment night walk inside the subdivision where I live, I passed by the basketball court where a group of teenagers displayed their individual folly playing kanya-kanya (to each his own) brand of play in five-versusfive games. Whoever gets the ball, he dribbles right away and takes every chance to shoot right away, mostly from a three-point angle and usually with no success.
I asked myself: “What happened to teamwork? Are we looking at our future politicians and bureaucrats?” I continued watching the game as if I was enjoying it. But no. It was a pathetic way to spend my time watching them play until a light bulb sparked inside my head. I raced back to my house to get a piece of paper and a ballpen.
Immediately, I took note of two prominent players from each team and baptized them as follows: Team Toothless Crocodiles included players Lanky Jones and Rocket Man. The opposing team was named Team Brown Foxes bannered by Tall Black and Lazy Dog. Somehow, these monikers would best describe their physical personalities.
At the end of the 20-minute game, Brown Foxes emerged the winner with a score of 12 to 8. The top scorers from both teams were Tall Black with six points and Rocket Man with four points. So, how do we interpret the numbers of the two teams? I took a walk toward the subdivision gate while mulling on that puzzle.
No set numbers
The time was 8:17 in the evening. I asked the security guard-onduty who was busy enjoying Netflix’s “Fugitive: The Curious Case of Carlos Ghosn” on his phone. Unmindful that he may not be doing properly his job, I thought that this guy in blue has a sophisticated taste. Looks like he’s a manager trapped in a guard’s uniform. And so, I asked him: “What’s the average number of nights that those teenagers enjoy their game in a week?”
He answered: “Iba-iba po (it varied).”
I pressed for a better answer until he voiced out — “four nights a week” without any hint of irritation. How do I make sense of the two unrelated numbers — the team scores of Toothless Crocodiles and Brown Foxes compared to the number of games they enjoy in a week? Sure, there are many variables to consider, like how many times do the top scorers play in those four games?
The following night, I went to the other guard, looking for a different answer. What was his favorite movie on Netflix? He uttered with a big smile — Vice Ganda’s “The Amazing Praybet Benjamin.” Then, he replied: “Hindi po pare-pareho (not the same).”
Again, I pressed for an intelligent answer. This time, he said — “three times a week.” What am I doing with these numbers na hindi pare-pareho? What conclusion can I make out of these small numbers.
Small numbers
That’s the law of small numbers. Meaning, it’s unwise to make an intelligent conclusion out of them because the sample data are not enough. When you do a coin toss, there’s a universal belief that if a coin is tossed up in the air would result in a 50-50 percent chance that it will land on either heads or tails, even if you do it ten or 50 times.
The truth is — we need at least 40,000 times to make a conclusion similar to a study made by Berkeley undergraduates Priscila Ku and Janet Larwood in 2009. The result was a “dynamical bias” showing “a coin to be slightly more likely to land the same way up as it started.” That’s assuming that a coin is fair.
Obviously, it’s unreliable when you do it for only a time (even for few times) with the basketball game between Toothless Crocodiles and Brown Foxes. That’s why there’s a need to make further study of this except that I’m not stupid enough to spend the time watching basketball games with players competing for the lone ranger award.
Somehow, there’s one important lesson I learned from the two security guards who explained the term hindi pareho. It can be interpreted in so many ways in different Filipino contexts: ukauka (uneven), magkaiba (dissimilar), hindi pareho, kabilan (unsymmetrical).