Lots of interesting replies.
A. The "community" Denis Roberts refers to wants statistics to tell them
which is better, which of two models is the correct one, how much more will
method B cost me,then method A, which process do I use that will make me
more money, which is the best advertisment strategy, which or two positions
that my candidate can take will get him the most votes, which (of several
strategies/models) will get me more money when I trade on NASDAQ, what is
the probability that I can get genome U1 patented, which treatment will get
patients out of the hospital quicker, etc, etc, etc.
B. Statistics cannot do any of this. It can only tell you what is the
probability that what you have occured by chance.
C. Whatever you use, hypothesis, confidence intervals posterior probability,
or any other stat metod are only tools. The bottom line is a probability,
not a definite answer.
D. The only definate answer is if the result works as intended. Or as Joe
Ward say's it does a good job of prediction.
E.The success is a human judgement, which the people in A want a machine and
software to do, and to be infalable (because human judgement is not).
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