Comments on Livia Blackburne: Multiple Posts About Multiple Comparisons

Perhaps Todd should run an analysis about how Lott...

2010-02-27T19:07:18.074-05:00

Perhaps Todd should run an analysis about how Lottery numbers should be picked. Isn't this the theory that works in reverse to accurately predict numbers? Urban math?

What I like about the study of science, is that it...

2010-02-25T23:01:51.192-05:00

What I like about the study of science, is that it forces us to acknowledge change and uncertainty. Often, what was once believed as truth, is disproved...then what?

Sigh, memories from my Stats class... and most of ...

2010-02-25T02:49:46.325-05:00

Sigh, memories from my Stats class... and most of my higher level classes. Anyway, I've been away from the internet so I just read your Love at First Sight post and loved it!

Michael: Your colleague is a very wise man :-P

2010-02-24T20:12:38.673-05:00

Michael: Your colleague is a very wise man :-P

A colleague, who is also a statistics mentor and i...

2010-02-24T20:11:32.773-05:00

A colleague, who is also a statistics mentor and inveterate mischief maker, once pointed out that the curse of multiple comparison error isn't confined to the bounds a single analysis, rather it afflicts one's whole career. Every time you do another hypothesis test there's a higher probability that some test result you've reported is wrong. His suggested work-around for this was to grab passers-by and have them do the analysis instead.

I think it was at about this time that I decided to renounce hypothesis testing, throw my lot in with the Dark Side, and come out as a Bayesian.

Todd -- I think some people in the other sciences ...

2010-02-24T13:59:01.564-05:00

Todd -- I think some people in the other sciences would say those of us in the statistical sciences are even less sure than they. There's this running joke -- if you need statistics to interpret your data, you're not doing science. Hehe. And then there's that PhD comic where the student says "I did a K-S test on my data" and the professor goes "Oh, that bad huh?"

Ah, statistics :-)

Oh, I think scientists are the most skeptical peop...

2010-02-24T12:59:32.000-05:00

Oh, I think scientists are the most skeptical people in the world, both by nature and by profession. If you ask a good scientist whether he's *sure* the sun will rise tomorrow morning, he'll tell you that it's impossible to be *sure* about anything.

If you flip a coin 100 times and it's heads every time, it's still possible that it's a fair coin, and that has to be acknowledged.

At some point, though, when you want to actually apply science to real-life, you have to set a threshold for "Even though I'll never be sure, this is close enough." So even though we're not *sure* of the laws of physics, we can put a man on the moon. And even though we're not *sure* of how bacteria reproduce and spread, we can make some pretty good antibiotics.

Speaking scientifically, I'm not *sure* that evolution through natural selection explains the origins of our species, or that there is an anthropogenic effect on the climate, or that the sun will rise tomorrow. But if I were a betting man, I'd bet all the money I have on any of those.

Todd

So glad to hear a scientist admit that everything ...

2010-02-24T09:55:51.049-05:00

So glad to hear a scientist admit that everything is tentative - what's the deal with those global warming scientists?
Anyway, Livia I think I saw your name on Elana Johnson's post as one of the winners of her contest. Congratulations - very awesome.

Got it :) Thanks for the explanations!

2010-02-24T07:26:57.453-05:00

Got it :) Thanks for the explanations!

Go ahead and send me 20,000 coins and I'll che...

2010-02-23T23:11:18.319-05:00

Go ahead and send me 20,000 coins and I'll check to see if there are any bad ones. I'll make sure it's a thorough check.