Hi Bert,
On Sep 16, 2009, at 4:06 PM, Bert Gunter wrote:
<snip>
Finally, "statistically different" is a meaningless phrase.
I'm not sure if you're quoting that to point out something in
particular you're taking exception to, but I never said that. I did
mention "statistical significance" with respect to a test, though,
which is not meaningless, as far as I know.
I would not bother with this were it not for the fact that Steve's
apparent
confusion -- or at least imprecise statements -- is widespread among
scientists, in my experience, and leads to frequent misapplications
and
misinterpretations of significance testing. The woes of Stat 101
training.
</snip>
As noted in my message, I didn't claim to be a "real" statistician,
but I'm not all that confused, either: I made it a point to mention
that I was intentionally sacrificing rigor for intuition. I guess, by
definition, this leads to some imprecise statements with varying
degrees of vagary. In my view they seemed like rather small pot holes
on the path to a workable understanding of some use of a t-test,
apparently the pot holes were larger than measured: sorry.
Thanks for wearing the stats prof hat, though. It's good that someone
stepped up to lay down the law.
With white flag raised,
-steve
--
Steve Lianoglou
Graduate Student: Computational Systems Biology
| Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
| Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Contact Info: http://cbio.mskcc.org/~lianos/contact
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