-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Comparing and individual to a group
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 12:24:37 -0500
From: JARRIN VALLADARES PABLO SANTIAGO <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>, "morphmet" <[email protected]>
Hi Megan,
The answer to your question may be answered in philosophical grounds. An
individual, by essence, is unique and therefore it must be different
from other individuals. The properties that confer individuality to such
entitity (e.g. organism) are what make it distinct and recognizable.
Therefore, it is sort of a tautology, to make a statistical test (if any
exists) to find out if an individual is different from the rest.
You may estimate a distance (e.g. euclidean) between your individual to
the center of the rest of your samples (e.g. mean), but keep in mind
that an individual will be always unique in its intrinsic conception and
meaning. Instead of asking if your individual is different (which it
must be), ask how distinct is it to the average form (by measuring a
distance). There are many ways in which you can generate a distance
matrix between objects.
The ontological difference between an individual organism and and
"individual" species is also at the heart of the population thinking
paradigm, which also fits nicely within the core of statistical theory
(e.g. the central limit theorem and the law of the large numbers!).
Pablo
Pablo Jarrin
Ph. D. candidate
Dept. of Biology / Boston University
M. A. Ecology Behavior and Evolution
Boston Univ.
Director
Yasuni Research Station
Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas
Pont. Univ. Católica del Ecuador.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*De:* morphmet [mailto:[email protected]]
*Enviado el:* mié 08/12/2010 11:57
*Para:* morphmet
*Asunto:* Comparing and individual to a group
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Comparing and individual to a group
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 08:56:02 -0500
From: Megan Dufton <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Dear morphometric users,
I am very new to morphometrics and am looking for some advice. I am
attempting to compare an individual to a group statistically. I want
to determine if an individual is different from the group. I have
tried to do this by using morphologika, but I?m having a hard time
with the program returning errors so I have not made it far with that
program (I?m using windows 7). Does anyone know of a different/
better way I can do this analysis?
Thanks so much for any advice!
Megan
