Bert Gunter <gunter.berton <at> gene.com> writes: > Martin's reply provides an appropriate response, so nothing to add. But my > questions dig deeper: Why do so many (presumably nonstatisticians, but ?) > belong to this R^2 religion? Is it because: > > 1) This is what they are taught in their Stat 101 courses by statisticians? > 2) ... by "pseudo"statisticians in their own professions (no disrespect > intended here -- just want to make a clear distinction)? > 3) It's the prevailing culture of their discipline (journal requirements, > part of their standard texts, etc.)?
Good point. Speaking from a clinical perspective: It is because many journals (British are the exception) ask medical reviewers to do the statistical reviewing within 5 minutes. They use the following formula to assess the quality of the paper (weights may vary): q(paper) = 10* n(pvalues) + 5*n(R^2) + 3.5*n(Error Bars) Values above 300 qualify for immediate acceptance, and Journals like Lancet, New English and British Journal of XXX provide professional advice. The first two are well known, the last is my special combat area. Glucose values measured every 2 minutes look like lice-comb, and nobody cares about the meaning. Dieter ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
