Of Fries

The last few weeks have been spent engaging in the same passionate debate with an old roommate on whether McDonald's or Wendy's have better fries. It's a no-brainer that McDonald's has better fries; fries from Wendy's are way too salty and the quality between batches of fries is wildly inconsistent. One day you'll get a bunch of flopsy fries, sometimes they're crazy salty, and once every so often you'll get a batch that are great. People like Wendy's for the 4 for $4, not the fries. If fries weren't included in the 4 for $4 would anyone actually order fries at Wendy's? I think not.

Anyways, this debate with my friend started when he and a couple friends went to a few different fast food joints, ordered fries from each, and then performed a "blind taste test" to see which one was best. For starters, their sample size was pathetic (only 3 or 4 people as the tasters) and there was nothing blind about the experiment since they all knew what fries they were tasting. They decided that from their taste test there was conclusive evidence that Wendy's fries were not only better than McDonald's but that they were the best fries at fast food locations. You cannot draw conclusive evidence from an experiment that breaks every rule of statistics. This isn't breaking some obscure, higher-level statistical theory but rather basic principles from STAT 121 which just about everyone at BYU has taken some point. The smaller the sample, the greater the variation and less conclusive the results. Personal bias stemming from a non-blind experiment introduce invalid results. I like statistics, but I love statistics done right.

To prove my point, I posted a poll on my Instagram story asking people if which fries they preferred. I didn't include a picture of any fries (which could subconsciously introduce bias) nor did I put my personal opinion anywhere and let the poor people who choose to follow me vote on their preferred fries. Though I'm happy that McDonald's pulled through (currently 126 - 109 or a (.54 - .46 split), I'm disappointed in how close it was. I'm confident that with a larger sample size (235 is way bigger than 4) and no personal bias we are able to see the true results: 

I'm losing my faith in the opinion of the general public over non-important issues like fries and NBA All-Star voting. I'm sad that people jump on trends so easily and actually think that Wendy's fries or better or that Trae Young should be in the all-star game or be considered as an MVP candidate. On what planet would you take Trae Young over Ja Morant? Both are lottery pick point guards drafted to turn their respective franchises around. Ice Trae arrived as the newest member of a garbage team and now the Hawks are... still garbage. As a rookie, Ja became the leader of his team and led them to a play-in game for the playoffs (in the West by the way). Ja Morant has not been described as a piece of tissue paper on defense as Trae Young has been. While it is fun to watch Trae put up 30 points, do some street ball dribbles, and pull up for 30-footers, he's not helping that franchise become a contender. How are people voting for James Harden after a season where he refused to play for the Rockets until he was traded? In that downtime the dude put on like fifty pounds. Klay Thompson is apparently one of the leaders in votes in the West despite playing zero games and being out for the entire season with a torn achilles. 

I guess my point in this is that we often get caught up in the fun trends and don't take five seconds to actually look closer and make a more sound analysis. McDonald's fries > Wendy's fries, Ja > Trae, and slightly overripe bananas > slightly underripe bananas.