In article , "xrongor" wrote:

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
news

But it's not the same "apple" from one year to the next. So any comparison
between them is meaningless.

which is why im not drawing any comparasion except to say the % of their
goal has fallen. you have already conceded this point.

Conceded what? It's a meaningless comparison.


you are the one who keeps trying to toss the orange in there and saying
im
drawing some other conclusion based on it. my analogy stands quite well.

*You* are the one who tossed the orange in here, by making a comparison
between two different things. I never said you were trying to draw any
kind of
conclusion from the comparison, I only pointed out that the comparison is
utterly meaningless.

of course it is.

Then why do you insist on repeating it?


And your analogy is fatally flawed, as I have pointed out, because it uses
the
same name for things being compared, which are *not* the same. If you are
unable to see this, there is no point in further discussion.

what comparison am i making (please quote me) except to say that the %
of
their goal fell? where is the orange?

That *is* the comparison: saying "that the % of their goal fell" implies a
comparison to whatever it fell from.

no it doesnt.

I'm afraid the discussion must end for me at this point. I see no purpose in
continuing a debate with a person who is unable or unwilling to see the
comparison implicit in that statement.

i think ive made this clear. this is the leap you are all
making that i do not agree with. it doesnt imply anything except that if
you compare the percentages, one is lower than the other, hence has fallen.

I'll try one last time: since you do not know what the raw numbers are,
comparing the percentages is of no value, and any statements about the
differences in those percentages have no meaning.

The orange is that the goal one year, and
the goal the next year, may or may not be the same, and thus comparisons
of
the percentages of the (possibly different) goals are without meaning.

the comparason of the percentages is meaningless except to say one is lower
than the other.

You still haven't caught on, have you? It's not "meaningless except...", it's
meaningless, period. "To say one is lower than the other" is meaningless,
because you don't know what you're comparing.

i thought we were past this. this has been my point all along.
i NEVER claimed otherwise. others claimed i did and that is what i
have taken exception to.



todd had made the claim he used the article to provide the proof of his
claim that enlistment is high. that was todd. not me. i have specifically
stated several times that while the statement "the percent of their goal is
falling" is true, you cannot make any further assumptions.

You can't even make *that* assumption. It's meaningless, because the goals may
have changed, and you don't know what they are.

the irony here
is that you are using the same agruments i have made to show why todd
couldnt prove re-enlistment is up, to show that i cant prove its something
else. i never ever claimed it meant anything except that the percentages of
their goal were falling.

It doesn't even mean that. It doesn't mean anything at all.

so in short, it sounds like we agree.

I don't think so... You seem to think there's some meaning in that comparison.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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