In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Jerry Dallal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"Karl L. Wuensch" wrote:
>> The origins of the silly .05 criterion of statistical significance are
>> discussed in the article:
>I disagree with the characterization. If it were silly, it would
>not have persisted for 75 years and be so widely used today. Anyone
>can introduce anything, but the persistence of an idea requires
>acceptance and agreement to continue using it by the intended
>audience. The 0.05 level of signficance is a comfortable level at
>which to conduct scientific research and it does a good job of
>keeping the noise down (junk out of the scientific literature).
Keeping the noise down is the only justification I have
seen; there were major attempts to come up with any grounds
on which to justify .05 or any other p-value from
principles.
As to the persistence for more than 200 years (it is that old),
it was first believed to be a measure of the probability of
correctness of the null. By the time those using it then, as
now, as religion realized this was not the case, they were too
indoctrinated to change. It is not that unlike the case of
well-established beliefs; showing the error is not always enough.
>(I am *not* saying 0.05 *should* be used as an *absolute* cutoff.
>I'm merely saying that if there's a right way to do things, an
>intelligent use of 0.05 seems like a good approximation to that
>right way for a wide range of important problems!)
Even those who try to intelligently consider p-values
recognize that more accurate information should result in
lower p-values; incorrect rejection needs to be balanced
against incorrect acceptance. If .05 is the appropriate
value for one sample size, it is not for other sizes.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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