On Fri, 7 Apr 2000, dennis roberts wrote in part:
> At 04:00 PM 4/7/00 -0500, Michael Granaas wrote:
>
> >But whatever form hypothesis testing takes it must first and foremost
> >be viewed in the context of the question being asked.
< snip >
> to ... ask the question of real interest ...
>
> what effect DOES this new treatment have?
> what kind of correlation IS there between X and Y?
> what IS the difference between the smartness of democrats and republicans?
>
> if you ask questions that way ... they do not naturally or sensibly
> lead to our testing the typical null hypotheses we set up
Ah. But does this reflect some metaphysical deficiency in the idea of
testing hypotheses, or a paucity of imagination in setting up suitable
(not necessarily "typical") null hypotheses?
[Note that if one addresses Dennis' 3 questions above by finding
confidence intervals, one is reintroducing hypothesis tests, as it were
by a back door.]
-- Don.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald F. Burrill [EMAIL PROTECTED]
348 Hyde Hall, Plymouth State College, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MSC #29, Plymouth, NH 03264 603-535-2597
184 Nashua Road, Bedford, NH 03110 603-471-7128
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