In article <STIt4.1882$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
William Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Herman Rubin wrote in message <896heg$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>>There is NO way that you can deduce anything about causation
>>form the data ALONE. Statistics cannot do your thinking
>>for you; it is necessary to use your reasoning as well.
>>Those who use statistics as a religion are worshipping idols.
>Bill responded:
>Exactly where am I talking religion? I see no sign of intelligent reasoning
>in your response,
As someone who has worked on the foundations, I suggest you
look at the real problem. In principle, you start out by
considering every possible theoretical model, and you use
the data to combine with your outlook to produce results.
In practice, you cannot do this exactly, as it would
require an infinitely large and infinitely fast computer
operating with zero cost. But it does tell you that much
of the current statistical religion is wrong.
The polarization effect is there. Have you paid any
>attention to the posts on corresponding correlations/regressions?
WHY should one look at correlations or regressions? Are
these linear relations even approximately correct? Using
linear approximations is reasonable for SMALL effects, but
those using correlations and regressions usually have large
ranges for their variables. While least squares was heavily
used in the physical sciences for improving accuracy, it was
used with theoretical models, which were either simple or
derived from simple assumptions by theoretical reasoning.
In fact, many of the early theories, supposedly obtained
from data, would have been rejected by the usual statistical
procedures; fortunately, they had not yet come into use.
When one has simple theories, of the type which someone
doing logical reasoning would formulate, where the error
in the data is small compared to that in the theory, they
can be found by "data analysis". Apart from things like
Mendelian and similar genetics, biology does not work that
way, and the social sciences are even worse.
Stop
>being so stuffy and condescending and try it yourself, Tell me, are any
>statisticians trainned to think for themselves, Most of you guys have a way
>of ignoring data and logic.
No, it is you who ignore logic by not formulating your
models carefully, and expecting to get them from data.
As a statistician, I MUST NOT tell you what assumptions
about the model to make, but I also must tell you that
assumptions are needed to analyze the data, and you should
be aware that your assumptions can be wrong.
It reminds me of religious fundamentalists.
>"The received view (from the masters) is that it can not be done and that is
>that."
It is in mathematics that one can show it cannot be done.
I suggest you read about self-consistent behavior under
uncertainty; my paper in _Statistics and Decisions_, 1987,
has only quoted mathematics beyond what everyone should be
able to handle. There are other publications on this;
one written for social scientists with little mathematics
is the book by Clemen, _Making Hard Decisions_. There is
also Raiffa's book, _Decision Analysis_. All of these
look at the problem from the point of behavior of a
"rational" person, using only a limited self-consistency
aspect of rationality to identify the problems.
It is as though you have never read a history of math, philosophy or
>science, Don't you have any idea at all about what it is to discover new
>things? Why in the world do so many departments hire such dim wits and
>cowards?
My record on discovery of new things is open to inspection.
--
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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