Crash,

I see a huge difference between analysing stats to see if they refute or support a particular argument and backfitting (which in my book means applying different rules and filters to data until you come up with something that shows a profit, regardless of whether it is logical or not).

Your original comment on this thread was:

Anyone backing outside barriers hasn't been punting long enough to know better and I don't care if the stats. show it's almost a level playing field.

To me this makes no sense - you are saying in the one sentence that you think outside barriers are bad but acknowledge that the statistics show there is no difference! Why are you opposed to outside barriers if you have never bothered to check what the results would have been from including them in your betting???

The statistics I quoted showed that barriers do have a small impact on the strike rate but that punters obviously over-estimate this affect as average dividend goes up by more than it should given the small disadvantage.

I guess my point is that at least I am basing my decision to generally ignore barriers on some factual evidence rather than just a perception that they are bad. The strange thing about human perception is that two people can view the same events and come to totally opposite conclusions depending on their previous assumptions or beliefs.

There have been some really interesting psychology experiments that I have read about that basically show humans will remember things that confirm their beliefs but dismiss and forget those that challenge the beliefs - therefore over time your beliefs are reinforced even when they are not necessarily true. In one experiment half the subjects were given a very convincing (but totally false) lecture on why left-handed people are worse at catching balls than right-handed people (or it might have been the other way round). They then watched a video of a baseball game with a team of "righties" playing a team of "lefties" and at the end had to estimate how many catches each team had dropped. Something like 90% of the subjects who had received the lecture over-estimated the dropped catches by the left-handers and underestimated the right-handers whilst the ones that did not receive the lecture were much better at estimating the true numbers (which were, in fact, the same for both teams).

With the barrier example each time you see a race where the favoured runner starts from a wide barrier and is beaten your brain will see this and store it away as confirmation that your previous perception of barriers is correct. When the winner starts from an outside barrier you will more than likely not remember the barrier position or dismiss it as it conflicts with your perception. It is only when you see the real figures down on paper that you can make a judgement on whether your perception is true or false!

PS. If you are going to put my home town down at least spell it right! Of course Canberra actually has the lowest number of politicians in permanent residence of any Australian state or territory - all the w**kers live out there with you guys and only visit here for a few weeks at a time (and only during the week - you should see the suits at Canberra Airport on a Friday evening)!
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"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

[ This Message was edited by: becareful on 2003-12-11 13:19 ]