Bill, are we the Luddites in this arena?  I agree with you, and my
statistics professor would have taken it one important step further:  Choose
your statistical analysis methods before you start collecting your data --
that way you can carry out your data collection so as to fit your chosen
statistical procedure.  Too many people collect their data first, then
search for a statistical procedure that will fit their data.

The best time to seek the advice of a statistician is before you design your
study, not after you've collected your data.

Warren W. Aney
Senior Wildlife Ecologist
Tigard, Oregon

-----Original Message-----
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of William Silvert
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 1:57 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Data set with many many zeros..... Help?


One point about the various replies to this and other posts that disturbs me
is the focus of the responses. It used to be that statistical questions were
answered in terms of statistical techniques, such as regression or ANOVA or
t-tests. Now the answers are phrased in terms of software - SAS, R, SysStat,
etc. I am not confident that relying on proprietary black boxes is the best
way to analyse data.

Bill Silvert


----- Original Message -----

> If you have access to SAS, ...

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