Somebody upthread wrote:
> > "So if you take a good random
> > sample and compute a 95% confidence interval, there is a 95% chance
> > that the true population parameter is within the computed interval."
An anonymous contributor wrote:
> > Absolutely not true.
and [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Why not?...
I suppose our anonymous chum is griping about the fact that the order
of the sentence suggests that the probability is being computed after
drawing the sample, or at least leaves the question unclear.
If the statement were amended to:
"So if you are about to take a good random sample and compute a 95%
confidence interval, there is a 95% chance that the true population
parameter will be within the computed interval."
this is made unambiguous. The use of tenses to indicate conditionality
has some drawbacks; it may be better to write:
"For 95% of good random samples, computing a 95% confidence interval
yields an interval containing the true population parameter."
I would suggest, by the way, that (applying this level of pedantic
correctness consistently) we should not describe a vague statement that
permits either a correct or incorrect reading as "absolutely not true."
-Robert Dawson
.
.
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