If I moved a bunch of my valuable shit out of my house a few days before it somehow accidentally burned down, law enforcement and my insurance company would be suspicious, I think.

wizzwizz4 · 2019-04-19T20:11:21+00:00

They were maintaining Notre Dame at the time. Didn't you see all of the scaffolding around the building? There's a good excuse for this.

Though, if you don't take the excuse into consideration (or think it's insufficient by itself), here are some questions you might want to tackle.

Simple

These don't require much mathematical knowledge, but are likely to lead to false conclusions. If you want to tackle these, please provide the data you gathered; that'll make it easier for other people to answer other questions.

How often is an artefact in an old church usually restored?
How often is an artefact in a Notre Dame-category cathedral usually restored?
What's the probability per unit time (e.g. per month) that a given artefact will be restored during this time?
How does this probability per time change when the church / cathedral is being renovated / repaired?

Advanced

These questions are more likely to give a useful answer, however we're reaching the limit of my ability to ask good questions. (I'm not great at stats.)

Considering the distribution over different artefacts, how many standard deviations is this event from the norm?
- Also considering the cathedral "class"?
- Also considering the renovations?
Is the previous question even meaningful? i.e. is the distribution a normal distribution? If not:
- What is the distribution?
- Is there a correlation with popularity / legitimacy / importance / earned revenue?

Expert

Seeing as I'm not an expert, I can't provide any of these. Sorry.

What's "absolute average deviation"?
- Is it useful here?
- What does it tell us?
- Can you explain it in a way that reduces the inferential distance?

NotYourGuyBuddy · 2019-04-20T03:55:24+00:00

Do you think some guy just walked through marking all the art that is ok to burn

magnora7 · 2019-04-19T23:28:52+00:00

It also makes sense a fire is most likely to happen during the most intense stage of renovation, though

HeyImSancho · 2019-04-20T00:07:09+00:00

I get it, the dichotomy aspect; it's like if someone breaks into my home, the police tell me to get screwed, or shoot back(had it happen); where as someone shoplifting at Wal-Mart, will have the full force of the police, charged, and prosecuted.

So yeah, I get the comparison. I don't know what happened at Notre Dame, but I find it funny how fast somethings can be swept under the rug. Take into account of the warnings that ISIS, or other terrorists were targeting such structures, and it certainly leaves some questions when considering how fast a cause was determined.

It would be interesting to know what insurance was on the building, and was it properly insured, over insured, or what?

Just because it's 850 years old, doesn't mean it's 'solid', and it may of had an expensive repair needed; beyond the scope of projected work.

If it was an electrical fire, photographic proof of that, shouldn't be too difficult. I've personally seen entire mechanical rooms melt into a 3" layer of steel across the floor due to cut-outs not opening as designed..... So even to state 'electrical', and let's say it is, that still doesn't rule out intentionally set; insurance coverage is where I would look; also any issues that may of gone somewhat unreported.

conspiracy

conspiracy

MODERATORS

Simple

Advanced

Expert