Bazza Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 50 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 That's a very bad P number. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 150? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 Even worse! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 My discipline never uses p-values ... can those be greater than 1? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 I don't think so ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 You're talking about statistics, aren't you? I've never taken a statistics class . . . but I learned enough about the subject from Analytical Chemistry to be able to tutor it in college. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 Yeah, statistics. I see p-values all the time in biomedical papers, but p-values are never used in astronomy or those parts of physics that I read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 Statistics, or at least the proper interpretation of the same, is part of our curriculum. We get to use it later on, when we're supposed to write a dissertation in the next-to-last term. I hope I can get that far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 Used to be in astronomical data no one bothered with statistics because the data were so contaminated by systematic errors rather than random ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 6, 2015 Report Share Posted February 6, 2015 So things are different these days? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 6, 2015 Report Share Posted February 6, 2015 In many cases, yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 6, 2015 Report Share Posted February 6, 2015 Why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 6, 2015 Report Share Posted February 6, 2015 Used to be data sets were small, chiefly limited by the capacity of the instruments and the time of the investigators or time allocation on the telescopes. This always biased the sample in favor of things with greater apparent brightness, and often by declination (the celestial equivalent of latitude: you can't see the southern polar stars or Magellanic Clouds from northern hemisphere observatories). There are other biases, subtle ones, that enter in as well. If samples are limited to forty stars, and you know there are various not-well-known biases affecting the make-up of the sample, then ... statistics are not much help. The samples are small, and biased in ways you don't really know (or more properly, you are aware a bias exists but you don't know what that bias is doing). Once you got to the state where you could do hundreds of stars (or galaxies) selected from a large population using criteria you know, well, now statistics start becoming useful. But astrophysics didn't enter the "big data" condition until, well, the 1990s. L. Marcus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 I got home from work today to find the front door wide open and my wife on her hands and knees sniffing the living room carpet, and I thought, "Aw Hell, it's gonna be one of THOSE nights." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 Funny. It only took about a year with a kid in diapers to get my wife past that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 Why would anyone do that, anyway? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 Someone who is hypersensitive to odors (or, perhaps, one particular order). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 Meanwhile, step-mother-in-law had heart surgery today. Wife is stressed since her dad is stressed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 What kind of heart surgery? Recovery time is long and arduous if they had to damage the rib cage. Well wishes for everyone involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 There's much that can be done without opening the thorax nowadays. CABG comes to mind in the need-for-cracking department. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 I got home from work today to find the front door wide open and my wife on her hands and knees sniffing the living room carpet, and I thought, "Aw Hell, it's gonna be one of THOSE nights." What WAS Lady Pariah doing...? Wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 Sniffing the carpet, wasn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 Yes, but why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 That's where the whiskey was spilled? And re: step-mother-in-law, reamed out a couple of 90% blocked blood vessels, two stents, no doubt other stuff that hasn't made it as far down as me. But I was told yesterday afternoon that she might go home today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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