Read these facts slowly, maybe you will grasp the implication then... - Edit 1
Before modification by Shannow at 06/02/2011 04:46:50 PM
On the Bell Curve, the average strength woman would be on 50. That puts the average strength woman at slightly above Moiraine's 45 on your list.
Move Moiraine to around 55 or so and that's a problem solved.
And because it's a Bell Curve, it means that the majority of women fall around Moiraine's level in strength, with AS MANY above her as below her.
So, to put it simply, there should be as many women between Moiraine and Moghedien as there are between Moiraine and Dagian.
So, to put it simply, there should be as many women between Moiraine and Moghedien as there are between Moiraine and Dagian.
Nope. Darius and I sorted this out.
Because many women are excluded from being Aes Sedai because they are TOO weak, but none are excluded because they are too STRONG, logic dictates that the average woman is WEAKER than the average Aes Sedai, since 37.5% of women fall below Dagian in strength. If you add that 37.5% to the population, then the mean will inevitably be skewed to the weaker side of the average Aes Sedai. Meaning that only 12.5% of women would fall between Dagian and the average woman, but more than 12.5% of Aes Sedai fall between Dagian and the average Aes Sedai.
The Aes Sedai mean strength has nothing to do with global mean strength. The higher echelons of strength are as absent in their ranks as the lower ones are. They are in no way a representation of the global population of channelers.
For simple proof, just look at the novice pool at the beginning of the series. We're told that out of 40 or so Novices, very few were strong enough to be Aes Sedai. But, in the global population, 62.5% of the people should be strong enough to become Aes Sedai.
Clearly, the sample set comprising of women who want to become Aes Sedai is not an unbiased one, and therefore doesn't really show a bell curve.
To put it simply, the average woman is weaker than the avarage Aes Sedai. Since the average Aes Sedai is about two thirds as strong as Moiraine, that would put the average woman at about half of Moiraine's strength.
Nope. The average woman will be stronger, since when you measure the global average, outliers like Alivia and Nynaeve will be included, whereas there are no such woman among Aes Sedai. Thus, in the whole population of female channelers, Moiraine would be slightly above average at 55, but the average Aes Sedai at 35 will be much weaker than the average.
A good clue to this can be seen in the difference between Asha'man and Aes Sedai. The Asha'man go place to place actively recruiting, and have, as a result, a more representative sample set. You see that many more of them are strong enough to Travel, though among the Aes Sedai, this ability is rare.
Since RJ has made it extremely clear that male and female abilities are the same, on average, the number of woman who can Travel should be more or less the same as the number of men. But this is not seen among the Aes Sedai, proving once again that they're a sample skewed towards the weaker side.
Making Moiraine the strongest possible woman at double the average (which is 50 on the Bell Curve).
So there you have it. If the Normal Distribution (a Bell Curve) applies, then Moiraine should be the strongest possible woman on the planet.
So there you have it. If the Normal Distribution (a Bell Curve) applies, then Moiraine should be the strongest possible woman on the planet.
So RJ was a moron? I'm sorry, but if that's the only argument you can come up with to defend your pathetic list, then you shouldn't bother.
What? I guess everyone from Cadsuane and up don't exist then, in your Bell Curve world.
RJ's bell curve world.
Your stubborn resistance makes absolutely no sense. You continue to place more value on an ignorant comment from Aviendha that facts given straight out by RJ. And then, while still sticking to that line of thinking, you use execrable math to "disprove" RJ's own statement! Ridiculous.
RJ says flatly that 37.5% of women fall below Dagian.
That means 12.5% of women fall between Dagian and the average sterngth woman. Only 12.5%. Think what that means. THINK about it, don't just post a knee jerk response. Forget everything else we've debated about. Register the fact that only 12.5% of all channelers fall between Dagian and the average woman.
What that means is that in relative terms, the average strength woman is not much stronger than Dagian.
Regarding the representative sample issue:
The only reason why the Aes Sedai would not be a representative sample of the ENTIRE channeling pool, would be if their selection methods somehow influenced the exclusion of a large part of one side of the spectrum or the other.
Well, as it turns out, it does just that. And in a major way. 37.5% of the entire channeling population are automatically excluded from becoming Aes Sedai. Because they are too weak.
So immediately, more than a third of ALL CHANNELERS on the weak side of the average are DELIBERATELY excluded from the sample. This immediately skews the sample to the stronger side, moving the mean up past the average woman's strength.
On the upper side, there is no such restriction. In fact, stronger channelers, wherever they are found, are much more likely to become Aes Sedai and far more quickly too, than weaker channelers.
If some stronger channelers are missed out, is is randomly done, and will be balanced out by all the middling strength and weak Aes Sedai level channelers that are ALSO missed out on a random basis.
This is completely different from the deliberate, blanket exclusion of the 37.5% of weakest channelers.
THAT is why so many of the novices are so weak, because most of the channelers who are out there have fallend through the net because they form part of this 37.5% weaker than Dagian.
How could there possibly be enough women in the top 37.5% out there who have somehow RANDOMLY missed in sufficient numbers to balance out the 37.5% weakest channelers who were DELIBERATELY excluded?
The answer is, statistically it is impossible. For every incredibly strong channeler out there who has not been found due to random selection errors, there will be a matching weak woman who was NEVER FOUND either. I'm not talking about having been found and rejected due to being too weak. I'm talking about never found in the first place, just like the stronger woman who was found.
What's more, the Aes Sedai strength trend runs perfectly through the Aiel as well. Most Wise Ones who can channel are of Aes Sedai strength.
We hear of only 4 who are stronger than Moiraine, namely Therava, Tamela, Viendre and Someryn. And they include ALL their channelers, even the weakest ones, in their selection.
The point is, EVERY woman in the bottom 37.5% are automatically excluded from selection. But any woman who is found in the top 37.5% will be accepted with open arms.
Meaning that the reason there are no Nynaeve's etc. is because they are so incredibly rare. There are very few of them to be found, as opposed to many thousands of women in the bottom 37.5%.
So how do you make this Bell Curve work? Only by accepting that Dagian is not far below the average strength woman at all (remember, only 12.5% of women fall between her and the average strength), and that the top 37.5% that balances out the bottom 37.5% is in fact represented by the bulk of Aes Sedai between say Verin's strength and Moiraine's strength.
Statistically the average Aes Sedai MUST be stronger than the average woman. You cannot get away from the upward skewing of the sample caused by the DELIBERATE exclusion of the bottom 37.5% of the ENTIRE POPULATION.