In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Dennis Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>At 01:23 AM 9/28/01 +0000, Radford Neal wrote:
>radford makes a nice quick summary of the basic differences between
>bayesian and frequentist positions, which is helpful. these distinctions
>are important IF one is seriously studying statistical ideas
>personally, i think that trying to make these distinction for introductory
>students however is a waste of time ... these are things for "majors" in
>statistics or "statisticians" to discuss and battle over
I disagree. Otherwise, the student is introduced to what
is pure ritual, which is the way these things are used in
practice. When a medical paper states that something is
not important because the p value is .052, it is clear that
their statistical understanding leaves far too much to be
desired. Also, if they say that something is very
important because it is significant at the .001 level, the
same holds. How much damage has been done by the use of
significance testing, confidence intervals, etc., by
government agencies and journals is medicine, psychology,
education, etc.?
--
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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