- 31 Dec 09, 15:50#177725
Ahhh, I follow. I find statistics and figures of that ilk interesting also (but that could be when I have an interest in the subject matter).
Well in a literal sense, technically that's correct. What researchers tend to do is choose for comparison, subjects within boundaries that have a finite and measurable amount of variables. An example is a guy in an office on the floor below me is carrying out research into consumer behaviour in terms of purchasing food by three specific areas - store own brands, national brands and international brands. There are a number of variables that include gender / age / ethnicity etc. of shopper. Location of store, economic climate etc. but essentially the products are similar and comparable.
The problem with F1 is that each car has approximately 80,000 components, the majority of which will differ, some in a minor way and others in a major way from car to car and set-up to set-up. That's a whole lot of variables to take into account, and that's just the car itself!....
Technically I will admit that such a statistical study may be possible, however this would have to be a massive scale study with a lot of people and a lot of time (we're talking years) to collect the data (much of which may not even exist beyond a decade or so ago), deconstruct the data and then construct and test the hypotheses. Even then, the results would not be conclusive due to certain crucial variables that cannot be tested.
Statistics is a very boring subject that personally (and rather sadly) I find interesting, I fear if I go on too much that I may send some forum members to sleep (if they haven't done so already!!).
Research is a very tricky field, and this is why I said at the outset that the term 'statistics' is often misquoted and misinterpreted. Often when people mention statistics (particularly relating to sports), what they actually are talking about is records, which are two different things. That was all I really meant at the start of this discussion...
Ahhh, I follow. I find statistics and figures of that ilk interesting also (but that could be when I have an interest in the subject matter).
