Peter Farley's lament is understandable, but it is important to [better] understand that all scientific and engineering questions are statistical in character and that they become so increasingly as a subject advances.
Deterministic, Newtonian methods served physics well in the 17th century; but the question is there or is there not a Higgs Boson must be and is being addressed statistically. (The tentative answer is yes.) Performance measurement has reached this stage. Non-statistical questions only mislead; such measurements are experiments that must be designed explicitly and in advance. As Sir Ronald Fisher put the matter <begin extract> To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of. </end extract> John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
