Misuse of statistics

Mathturbation is the practice, in quizbowl, of using more and more elaborate formulae, computer programs, and statistical analysis tools in a futile attempt to make up for the fact that the premises or underlying data being fed into the model are incorrect or do not exist. It is a particularly insidious form of bad practice because its proponents can both be blinded by the elegance of their algorithms and be more able to discuss their details than less mathematically-trained dissenters, giving them an easy way to bulldoze simple but correct objections to the process.

Famous examples of mathturbation include:

• Tournament formats which rank teams based on factors other than win-loss through complicated formulae and end up producing self-evidently absurd results (2003 ICT)
• Power-matching systems which make teams play widely different strengths-of-schedule based on their performance in each game, but then take teams to the playoffs based on the incommensurable win-loss records produced
• "Correlation tests" which attempt to mathematically "prove" which tiebreakers are more fair by starting with the unproven, unaccepted assumption that the point of a tiebreaker is to "predict who will win the next game between the two teams"
• PATH, which is laden with the assumption that all players on a team are perfect generalists and are being denied a chance to answer any tossup their teammates answer
• Every PPG-replacement or other player- or team-ranking formula ever produced, which seeks to sidestep the fact that the data collected about quizbowl games are insufficient by manipulating that data harder