Mathematical Hypothesis

This came to me as I woke up this morning, even before the radio alarm went off, so I expect it has as much value as anything coming out of a dream.

Take any category of things to which a numerical value can be measured and/or assigned. We know that taken all together, the likely result of all those numbers will be a bell curve. Now, take any one individual thing in that category for which a mistake has been made, and you first get two different numbers for it. One is right, one wrong. Statistically, it looks like the odds are fifty-fifty that either number is the right one. However, my hypothesis says that the number which is closer to the mean for the whole category is more likely to be the right number.

I don't know how to go about proving or disproving it. That takes a whole different kind of dreamer.


* * * * *

A couple hours and a cup of coffee later, it occurs to me that this could simply be another version of Occam's Razor: That which is simplest is usually right. It may be better known by "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras". That could get me off on a whole other tangent about eurocentrism. What do you say to the person who actually lives in zebra country, where horses are more rare? Or wildebeasts? or waterbuffalo? or yaks? or here, a thousand years ago, when bison roamed?