Prof. Koenker's response probably settles the matter, but if not, this thread should really be taken offlist, as it is primarily about statistics and not R programming. stats.stackexchange.com might be an alternative place to post; indeed, I suspect the issue has already been addressed in their archives.
Cheers, Bert Bert Gunter "The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along and sticking things into it." -- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip ) On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 1:02 AM, Roger Koenker <rkoen...@illinois.edu> wrote: > In certain fields this sort of standardization has become customary based > on some sort of (misguided) notion that it > induces “normality.” For example, in anthropometric studies based on the > international Demographic and Health > Surveys (DHS) childrens’ heights are often transformed to Z-scores prior > to subsequent analysis under the dubious > presumption that variability around the Z-scores at various ages will be > Gaussian. In my experience this is rarely > justified, and analysts would be better off modeling the original data > rather than doing the preliminary transformation. > This is discussed in further detail here: https://projecteuclid.org/ > euclid.bjps/1313973394. > > > On Jul 17, 2018, at 5:53 AM, Michael Thompson < > michael.thomp...@manukau.ac.nz> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > I seem to remember from classes that one effect of scaling / > standardising data was to get better results in any analysis. But what I'm > seeing when I study various explanations on scaling is that we get exactly > the same results, just that when we look at standardised data it's easier > to see proportionate effects. > > This is all very well for the data scientist to further investigate, but > from a practical point of view, (especially IF it doesn't improve the > accuracy of the result) surely it adds complication to 'telling the story' > > of the model to non-DS people? > > So, is scaling a technique for the DS to use to find effects, while > eventually delivering a non-scaled version to the users? > > I'd like to be able to give the true story to my students, not some > fairy story based on my misunderstanding. Hope you can help with this. > > Michael > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > > 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. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > 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. > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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.
