Ted Harding <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 10:59:21PM CEST]: > On 13-Jul-08 19:53:47, Johannes Huesing wrote: > > Frank E Harrell Jr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at > > 08:07:37PM CEST]: > >> (Ted Harding) wrote: > >>> On 13-Jul-08 13:29:13, Frank E Harrell Jr wrote: > >>>> [...] > >>>> A large P-value means nothing more than needing more data. No > >>>> conclusion is possible. [...]
> But "absence > of evidence", in my interpretation (which I believe is right for > the statistical context of "non-significant P-values"), means that > we do not know about A: we do not have enough information. > What would the p-value have to be like in your opinion to make the null hypothesis look more likely after the experiment than before? > The proof is, basically, given in terms of a 2-valued logic where > every term is either TRUE or FALSE. In the real world we have at > least a third possible value: UNKNOWN (or, as R would put it, NA). How would the probabilities that A is NA be affected by the outcome of an experiment like this? If this probability is affected, how does this leave the probability that A is T or F unaffected? Or do you assign the NA status to the data collected? A high p-value does not always equate that you might as well have collected nothing but missing values. Of course I buy into the notion that a point estimate with a measure of accuracy is much better suited to describe your data; but a high p-value as a result of a test procedure that can be claimed to be adequately powered may defensibly be taken as a hint that we can for now stick with the null hypothesis. -- Johannes Hüsing There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] from such a trifling investment of fact. http://derwisch.wikidot.com (Mark Twain, "Life on the Mississippi") ______________________________________________ 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.