Pax, Wolfgang. You will perhaps recall that an American humorist named Twain or Clemens once asserted there were three kinds of lies -- lies, damn lies and statistics. Of course numbers do not lie. But numbers do not tell the truth, either. That is the underlying observation I was making when I said -- in a humourous vein -- that statistical validity might be an oxymoron.

I promise not toget long winded about what I really think is an important truth -- in order to count things you have to take a couple of big steps away from understanding them. We have done this very successfully and built up some very powerful tools by doing so, but we have paid a big price in other respects. Especially when this successful tool in physics, which enabled us to isolate g and pi and c and lots of wonderful valid measures of mechanism, gets shifted over to the universe of psychology and sociology. I dare say atoms of various sorts don't protest being lumped into a category; but humans may not be as clearly "lumpable" into classes and sets as particles; and trying to so lump them immediately sets of a paradox of observer-influence. Applying physical measuring systems to humans is a disservice of magnitude. Some notice the insult more thanothers.

Regards,

A