Going gaga about confidence without limits
If truth be told I didn’t really miss the 2000 Millennium celebrations of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM) and the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC). For the masters of ceremonies didn’t pine for my paper on Applied Statistics and the Bre-X fraud. Most CIM and PDAC members play the kriging game and talk about confidence without limits. Most scientists on this planet work with real statistics and real confidence limits. I work mostly with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) and 95% confidence ranges (95% CR) for metal contents and grades of mined ores, mineral concentrates, mineral reserves and mineral resources. The world’s mining industry blathers about confidence without limits for mineral reserves and mineral resources. Yet it did accept confidence intervals and ranges limits for mined ores and mineral concentrates. So what’s all that talk about confidence? It should be about risk! The risks between trading partners seem to matter a lot more than the risks mining investors run. That’s the real story behind Bre-X!
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