The American Oligarchy essays

The American Oligarchy essays The Aristotelian view of democracy showed democracy as a supreme state of being, promoting equality more than anything. It allowed every person to have as much say in a government as any other person, and yet still allowed individuality to reign. To follow this path of true democracy is to follow the path to a perfect country. Yet America, which prides itself on being a truly democratic nation, is filled with corruption and extortion, nothing like the Utopia Aristotle portrayed. America is in the hands of a select few. A tiny fraction of the population holds any real political power, while the rest simply sit idly by. This goes against the very principle of democracy. Aristotle said of this Any one man [of the many] may be inferior [to a man of excellence], but the city-state is made up of many men. Just as a meal done by many is better than a single and simple one, for this reason a mass (ochlos) can judge many things better than any one man. In addition, that which is many is less likely to be corrupted. So, although an individual's judgment can be corrupted when he is overcome by anger or some other emotion, it is difficult for all to become angry and make erroneous judgments simultaneously. If all the men are good men and good citizens, they are less corruptible than one man. However, seldom is this the case with American politics. There are far fewer politicians then there are low class workers or unemployed, and yet these politicians decide upon most all of the important decisions the country is faced with. The only time the rest of the people are involved is when these politicians spew out money and promises in an attempt to gain the popularity of the public whom they are so far from. Although the majority of the United States is low to middle class, the only people in high political positions are those who spend millions of dollars to get where they are. Equality is one ...

The Meaning of Bimodal in Statistics

The Meaning of Bimodal in Statistics A data set is bimodal if it has two modes. This means that there is not a single data value that occurs with the highest frequency.  Instead, there are two data values that tie for having the highest frequency. Example of a Bimodal Data Set To help to make sense of this definition, we will look at an example of a set with one mode, and then contrast this with a bimodal data set. Suppose we have the following set of data: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 We count the frequency of each number in the set of data: 1 occurs in the set three times2 occurs in the set four times3 occurs in the set one time4 occurs in the set one time5 occurs in the set two times6 occurs in the set three times7 occurs in the set three times8 occurs in the set one time9 occurs in the set zero times10 occurs in the set two times Here we see that 2 occurs most often, and so it is the mode of the data set.   We contrast this example to the following 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 We count the frequency of each number in the set of data: 1 occurs in the set three times2 occurs in the set four times3 occurs in the set one time4 occurs in the set one time5 occurs in the set two times6 occurs in the set three times7 occurs in the set five times8 occurs in the set one time9 occurs in the set zero times10 occurs in the set five times Here 7 and 10 occur five times. This is higher than any of the other data values. Thus we say that the data set is bimodal, meaning that it has two modes. Any example of a bimodal dataset will be similar to this. Implications of a Bimodal Distribution The mode is one way to measure the center of a set of data. Sometimes the average value of a variable is the one that occurs most often.  For this reason, it is important to see if a data set is bimodal. Instead of a single mode, we would have two. One major implication of a bimodal data set is that it can reveal to us that there are two different types of individuals represented in a data set. A histogram of a bimodal data set will exhibit two peaks or humps. For example, a histogram of test scores that are bimodal will have two peaks. These peaks will correspond to where the highest frequency of students scored. If there are two modes, then this could show that there are two types of students: those who were prepared for the test and those who were not prepared.