Interesting Links for 1-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• Throwing dice gets to the truth about killing leopards. Incredibly smart thinking. I'm impressed
  (tags: random behaviour questions)

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

That is really very clever indeed!

[simont]

I have a feeling I've heard of a trick like this before. My memory thinks it was something to do with trying to find out rates of drug use in the US, or possibly the US military, but I can't recall where I might have read that and a quick google didn't find anything that looked like what I was half-remembering. I also have a vague feeling that the one I'm thinking of didn't provide for both false positives and false negatives; it just gave you deniability for giving a "yes" answer, but didn't do anything to turn some real "yes" answers into "no". I wonder how much more accurate the latter makes the tests.

(It also puts me faintly in mind of the practice of loading one rifle with blanks when organising a firing squad.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I can see how this approach would break up a fixed strategy of saying "No, I've never killed any leopards" so that it requires more thought to maintain a lie.

I'd like to see a parallel program checking on whether people have abused "anonymous" answers.

I'd also like to see whether the 18% of ranchers having killed leopards has a good match with the apparent number of leopards killed.