David, The original poster was not looking at distributions and testing distributions, I referred to the distribution of the p-value to help them understand (in reference to the paper mentioned).
-- Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. Statistical Data Center Intermountain Healthcare greg.s...@imail.org 801.408.8111 > -----Original Message----- > From: David Winsemius [mailto:dwinsem...@comcast.net] > Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 12:12 PM > To: Greg Snow > Cc: Kay Cecil Cichini; ted.hard...@manchester.ac.uk; r-h...@r- > project.org > Subject: Re: [R] general question on binomial test / sign test > > > On Sep 2, 2010, at 2:01 PM, Greg Snow wrote: > > <snipped much good material> > > > > The real tricky bit about hypothesis testing is that we compute a > > single p-value, a single observation from a distribution, and based > > on that try to decide if the process that produced that observation > > is a uniform distribution or something else (that may be close to a > > uniform or very different). > > My friendly addition would be to point the OP in the direction of > using qqplot() for the examination of distributional properties rather > than doing any sort of hypothesis testing. There is a learning curve > for using that tool, but it will pay off in the end. > > -- > David. > > > > Hope this helps, > > > > -- > > Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. > > Statistical Data Center > > Intermountain Healthcare > > greg.s...@imail.org > > 801.408.8111 > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r- > >> project.org] On Behalf Of Kay Cecil Cichini > >> Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 6:40 AM > >> To: ted.hard...@manchester.ac.uk > >> Cc: r-help@r-project.org > >> Subject: Re: [R] general question on binomial test / sign test > >> > >> > >> thanks a lot for the elaborations. > >> > >> your explanations clearly brought to me that either > >> binom.test(1,1,0.5,"two-sided") or binom.test(0,1,0.5) giving a > >> p-value of 1 simply indicate i have abolutely no ensurance to reject > >> H0. > >> > >> considering binom.test(0,1,0.5,alternative="greater") and > >> binom.test(1,1,0.5,alternative="less") where i get a p-value of 1 > and > >> 0.5,respectively - am i right in stating that for the first estimate > >> 0/1 i have no ensurance at all for rejection of H0 and for the > second > >> estimate = 1/1 i have same chance for beeing wrong in either > >> rejecting > >> or keeping H0. > >> > >> many thanks, > >> kay > >> > >> > > David Winsemius, MD > West Hartford, CT ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.