I think the criticism remains in force. If the "b"s are not iid, then "the mean is > 2 stdev" may not apply. The problem is not only the correlation between "b"s (one flavour of "dependent"), but also how they are going to be distributed (another flavour of "dependent"). Put differently, if you were to draw samples of 20 normally distributed values, and computed "b"s, would such "b"s be distributed normally? If not, then why would the two-sigma rule be meaningful?
no subject
I think the criticism remains in force. If the "b"s are not iid, then "the mean is > 2 stdev" may not apply. The problem is not only the correlation between "b"s (one flavour of "dependent"), but also how they are going to be distributed (another flavour of "dependent"). Put differently, if you were to draw samples of 20 normally distributed values, and computed "b"s, would such "b"s be distributed normally? If not, then why would the two-sigma rule be meaningful?