Re: Statistical Conventions in Social Science papers?


David A. Heiser wrote:
"Reef Fish" <large_nassua_grouper@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1167361171.466224.211680@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

David Winsemius wrote:
"Reef Fish" <large_nassua_grouper@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:1167337286.578317.202960@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

There are many in THIS group, from
Portuguese to American posters who do not know the meaning
of p-values. The lean on computer manuals that make errors
and assume that a "canned program sold for money" must be
correct, or something to that fallacious effect.


There are many in this group who disagree with Reef Fish's posting from
September. Every textbook consulted disagreed.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
First of all I will get chewed out for entering this discussion.

I agree with Bob on his interpretation.

Every testbook you consulted is as Bob said made an error of ommission.

The error of omission was in NOT stating the Alternative Hypothesis,
which is critical in the DEFINITION of the p-value.

But the examples carefully selected by David Winsemius were much
worse than that! Below are the reasons for my statement, spelled out:

RF> > Not the p-VALUE either. Where is the Alternative Hypothesis?


DW> Cox and Hinkley says a "level of significance" p_obs is defined
as:
DW> p_obs= Pr(T >= t_obs;H0)

"p_obs" is clearly not the p-value; but they called their p_obs a
"level of significance" which is patently absurd!

The significance level of a test = Pr( rejecting Ho ! Ho is true).

There is NO OTHER definition.

DW is quoting out-of-context so badly that he had Cox and Hinkley
saying that ALL Alternative Hypotheses are one-tailed, the "greater
than" tail.

Those are just some of the reasons that earned DW and JD their
Disqualification Status.

What you said is correct, but in a much less EXPLICIT way of pointing
out the errors.

-- Reef Fish Bob.

The cemtral issue is properly defining the complete domain of test results.
Just making a statement only about the hypothesis defines only a part of
this domain. The reader then has to assume what is the rest of the domain
envisioned by the proposer.

Most textbooks assume that the reader knows what the domain is, so just
giving H0 they assume that the reader knows what Ha is. Bob has however
pointed out in other messages, that this is not necessarily true. To argue
why textbooks do this is beyond this sequence.

DAH
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Not the p-VALUE either. Where is the Alternative Hypothesis?

-- Reef Fish Bob.


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