#i'm way overtired so just running on vibes today

[physticuffs]

i am so worried about how the statisticians know what they know and whether they're making it all up. i don't need to worry about this for basically any other branch of science/math. like, the aerospace engineers are obviously not making it up, because my phone works, so somebody got a satellite up there. the civil engineers are obviously not making it up, because i crossed a bridge this morning and it went fine. the chemists are obviously not making it up, because there are roughly a kajillion types of steel that get used for different things. the particle physicists--okay, they might've been making up everything since the bomb, but it basically wouldn't matter, we know they were at minimum not making it up when the most destructive existing technology was invented. the biologists are allergic to making things up, they are pretty open about the fact that they're mostly poking around and telling us what they find and they refuse to extrapolate. i almost wish they would make more stuff up so i could be comforted by the belief that somebody somewhere understands the immune system but biologists are cruel realists like that. the economists *are* making stuff up bc they don't have vacuums in economics, but everyone knows that so it's fine and they just have to go ahead and try stuff anyway.

the statisticians??? what are they up to??? how would we know if the statisticians were making stuff up? if my study "really" needed 200 participants and the statisticians said 100, how would i ever figure that out? how do they decide these things?

the thing is, i'm worried about the practical application of statistics. the number theorists might be making stuff up, and i also would have no way of knowing, but even if they are, i think they're probably just having fun and we should let them.