On Thu, 2008-11-27 at 00:46 +0800, Berwin A Turlach wrote: > Chuck explained already the reason for this small difference. I just > take issue about it being an important difference. In my opinion, > this difference is not important at all. It would only be important > to people who are still sticking to arbitrary cut-off points that are > mainly due to historical coincidences and the lack of computing power > at those time in history. If somebody tells you that this difference > is important, ask him or her whether he or she will be willing to > finance you a room full of calculators (in the sense of Pearson's > time) and whether he or she wants you to do all your calculations and > analyses with these calculators in future. Alternatively, you could > ask the person whether he or she would like the anaesthetist during > his or her next operation to use chloroform given his or her nostalgic > penchant for out-dated rituals/methods.
Yes he did and when I realized the source of my confusion I was appropriately chastised. I felt like a bit of a fool. Of course, I should try comparing apples to apples. Oranges are another thing entirely. As to the importance of the difference, I am of two minds. On the one hand I fully agree with you. It is an anachronistic approach. On the other hand we don't all have the pleasure of working in a math department where such subtleties are well understood. I work for a consulting firm that advises state and local governments (USA). I personally do try to expand my understanding on statistics and math (I do not have a degree in math), but my clients do not. When I'm working with someone from the government, it is sometimes easier to simply tell them that relationship x is significant at a certain level of certainty. Although I doubt they could really explain the details, they have some basic understanding of what I am talking about. Subtleties are sometimes lost on our public servants. And, since I do work for government, if I ask for a roomful of calculators, I might just get them. And really, what am I going to do with a roomful of calculators? --andy -- Insert something humorous here. :-) ______________________________________________ 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.
