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My Brother Louis Nelson, 1933 - 2012

My oldest brother, Louis, died in March not long before his 79th birthday. He had gotten more fragile over the last year, so we knew he was on the way. He was physically handicapped from birth, and while mobile for much of his life, he lost ever more of his muscular control, and for the last 20 years was either in a wheelchair or in bed. So his long life was something of a miracle, engendered I think because he was surrounded by love. I quote from his obituary to give some feeling for this fact of his life:

Louis M. Nelson, age 78, of North Platte, passed away March 19, 2012 at Centennial Park Retirement Village. He was beloved by his immediate family and his extended family, and by his large circle of friends. Louis was born May 26, 1933 in Berwyn, NE, to Ernest and Lillian Nelson. Survivors include his brothers, Keith and his wife Gale, Roger and his wife Reinhilde, and Larry and his wife Debby. Louis was a remarkable person, born with a physical handicap but blessed with a sparkling personality. He made others feel good, often by “giving them a hard time,” his way of making sure you knew he was your friend. He loved joking and banter, and was a delightful presence in the Nursing wing at Centennial. He was surrounded there by a wonderful staff who became his family. We will miss him greatly, but remember his influence – he made each of us a better person by his example of living a courageous, full life even in the face of great adversity.

Here is the graph of the full network on the day Louis died. I will later add one that shows just the result for the Egg I host at home.

My Brother Louis
Nelson, 1933 - 2012

To explore the question whether my personal Egg #1 might be more responsive or sensitive to my brother's death, the next graph includes a data line from my Egg, printed in green and labeled Egg #1. Noting again that single events aren't reliably interpretable, we can at least say there is no persuasive evidence that the Egg was much affected.

My Brother Louis
Nelson, 1933 - 2012

It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of similar analyses.


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