[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Gus, > > It would be possible to subsample any data set in order to produce any > effect desired. Until I know how you find the subset, I can not know if that > action is removing or obscuring the causal pattern.
Neither do I. But I need to know whether the causal pattern is still there. I guess you allow the possibility that the causal relation is removed. I just can't see how. Let's say, I take the causal relation "Smoking causes cancer". The existence of this causal relation should not depend on how I pick my subjects, should it? Of course, if I end up with only nonsmokers in the subsample, I won't detect the relationship, but that does not invalidate its existence. What am I missing? > Your requirement that I accept blanket inheritance is not intellectually > honest. We are dealing with numbers. We can change them by selecting them > in different ways. I am willing to make explicit how I sample and why. You > are not. You are acting like a child who is picking a fight in order to > blame the victim. You want me to look unreasonable for not agreeing with > your mysterious demands. I ask for clarification and you say its time to > end the conversation. Well, you are ending it at a time that CR is winning. > Rather than admit CR is valid, you drum up some cheap excuse to withdraw. > That is intellectually dishonest and indicative of a poor education. > > Explain what you are doing and do not make highly nebulous statements > expecting me to agree. Any pattern can be disinherited by fiddling with > data. Define your terms, philosopher, or be dismissed with the mystics and > sophists. > > And you should care, Gus. A lot of people's lives are affected by > statistics. It is not just a game. Its real. > > Bill . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
