dennis roberts wrote:
> but, if we follow this to some logical conclusion ... this could be
> rephrased as meaning ...
>
> situations where you have essentially complete control over variable
> manipulation .... = situations where you can establish 'the truth' (in
> terms of the impacts of these variables on things) ... but, this is
> precisely what many have been arguing on the list about that hypothesis
> testing ... statistical significance testing that is ... is in NO position
> to help you assert 'the truth' ... truth is a metaphysical notion ... not
> statistical
>
> in essence, if 'the truth' is a laudable goal and, for some reason we can
> 'learn of it' through 'scientific investigation' ... then it is NOT
> significance testing that leads us to it ... ... rather it is the DESIGN of
> investigations that is the key ...
Truth has nothing to do with it. We contruct stories of how the universe operates -
we call these stories 'theories' or 'models'. Significance testing is one way in
which we choose between stories as to which is (probably) more useful in a
specified context.
Alan
--
Alan McLean ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics
Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Melbourne
Tel: +61 03 9903 2102 Fax: +61 03 9903 2007
===========================================================================
This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful
people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO
THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no
way of controlling them, and excessive complaints will result in
termination of the list.
For information about this list, including information about the
problem of inappropriate messages and information about how to
unsubscribe, please see the web page at
http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/
===========================================================================
