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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Then discussion of one of my favorite topics – Chazal and statistics. R’AW says out loud what I’ve whispered to my chaburah – Chazal did not engage in statistics! First he discusses why a miyut shachiach (normally found minority?) is of concern (why not just say rov [majority] is sufficient?) – Perhaps because of concern for margin of error. Then on to miyut hamatzui (material minority) and the famous 10% rule of the Mishkinot Yaakov – he feels tshuva is misread; while it does mention 10% with some “interesting” proofs, the conclusion is that it’s just about what’s “common” – and the real problem is defining “common” in age where a shocheit may shecht 100X as many animals in the old days. That’s why we steer clear of doubt!!!!! Oy, if only they would ask an actuary?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>==========================================================<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Hmm, who wrote that? Anyway it does make me think: Given that now behavioral economists understand we have an availability heuristic (we predict frequency of events based on how easy it is to think of an example – and thus can overstate risks) and examples of everything are more commonly known (given technology changes/social networking), is it possible we need to redefine miyut hamatzui if R’AW is correct that it is a measure of what people think is common?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>KT<br>Joel Rich<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><br><br><table bgcolor=white style="color:black"><tr><td>THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE <br>
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