dennis roberts wrote:
>
> in an article ... that some might be able to access ...
>
> http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7280/226
>
> by
>
> Jonathan A C Sterne, senior lecturer in medical statistics, George Davey
> Smith, professor of clinical epidemiology.
> Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 2PR
>
> one of the summary points made is the following:
>
> "P values, or significance levels, measure the strength of the evidence
> against the null hypothesis; the smaller the P value, the stronger the
> evidence against the null hypothesis"
>
> my main questions of this are:
>
> 1. does the general statistical community accept this as being correct?
>
> 2. if the answer to #1 is yes ...
>
> then what does this tell us (only this p value) about what the real
> parameter value is? (are)
>
It doesn't say anything about the actual value - and why should it? It
is not a measure of the value, but a measure of the strength of the
(sample) evidence *about* the value!
Alan
> _________________________________________________________
> dennis roberts, educational psychology, penn state university
> 208 cedar, AC 8148632401, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
>
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--
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
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