In article <001501c1482f$756d6190$e10e6a81@PEDUCT225>,
Paul R. Swank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>If your purpose is to try and teach students about confidence intervals,
>then it makes little sense to start out by telling them the counterexamples.
Without counterexamples, it becomes quasi-religious ritual,
with no understanding.
>I don't start telling students about standard deviations by describing a
>Cauchy distribution. Now if we are going to do away with confidence
>intervals because of a few situations (probably contrived) where they don't
>work, then we need to rewrite a lot of statistics texts. Maybe the
>qualitative people have the right idea. Don't use numbers at all.
Teaching people to use something without any understanding
can only be ritual; this is what most uses of statistics
are these days.
If one does not use numbers, it is opinion. I hope that the
pediatricians you have in your classes do not misuse data in
the manner you seem to be suggesting.
>Paul R. Swank, Ph.D.
>Professor
>Developmental Pediatrics
>UT Houston Health Science Center
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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