I believe this is what many Singaporeans can concerned about,
regarding the opposition and political change.
Let me give a quick explanation about the law of regression
towards the mean. Essentially, we can give numerical values to many
things like performances scores, prices, age, height, etc.
For any particular population (say, the scores of all the
students who have ever taken PSLE), we can establish a mean
(perhaps the mean score is 200). Say we have an expectionally
bright cohort of students who collectively score an average of 220,
the chances are virtually nil that the next cohort will score 220
or anything higher. They will, effectively, "regress" downwards
towards 200. If the next cohort scores 180, then their successors
will again regress upwards towards 200.
In nature, there is regression towards the mean too. For
example, more often than not parents of above average height will
give birth to children shorter than their peers, and
vice-versa.
Back to the context of politics in Singapore. In many people's
eyes, the PAP did a good job undisputedly, through the independence
period to the 90s. Now some say the opposition should be
given a chance, "because they can do it even better" or "PAP has
become complacent".
But here's the question- Why change something that has proven
itself? That is what many Singaporeans say when it comes to the
elections. Again and again we hear them say "The opposition
will screw it up lah.", "Singapore will fail if the opposition
takes over.". How come they are quick to judge something
unproven?
There is some statistical basis for those comments even though
the opposition have not had a chance. If all the governments past
and present had their performances evaluated objectively, surely
the PAP would at least score somewhat higher than average.
So there is much danger, even though the opposition may be
full of talented and passionate members, that the performance of
the new government will "regress" towards the mean instead of
staying constant or being better than the last.
Extension of the principle: Above we looked at the population of
all world governments past and present. Now we can just
consider a population of just PAP governments past and
present. If we judge that the average performance of all past PAP
governments is X, then many people will say that the current
government has a performance below X as compared to the 1970s
governments that score above X. This drop in performance of the
current adminstration could be explained that they are simply
regressing about the true mean of performance of the PAP ("high"
compared to the rest of the world); soon we can expect their
performance to improve, and that we can trust that their true mean
performance has not dropped.
Quote WIki: For example, Carmelo Anthony of
the NBA's
Denver Nuggets had
an outstanding rookie season in 2004. It was so outstanding, in
fact, that he couldn't possibly be expected to repeat it: in 2005,
Anthony's numbers had dropped from his rookie season.
So what do you folks think? I'm no PAP fan-boy; I'm a utopian
socialist. Just pointing out that many Singaporeans
realistically view political change as a 'gambit' and why, from
statistical theory, they are "right" in a weird way.
How will you, opposition fans, get them to change their mind? Do
you disagree? I hope to facilitate a discussion. Pardon me,
statistics students, if I make a mistake about your theory.
