Fred, thanks. I'll make a note of your comments.

Aydin

On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:07:17 -0500, Frederick W Schueler <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:


>* In a case like this, you've got to wonder about subtle changes in the
>way the measurements were taken. I've heard the tale told, of a student
>of osteometric variation in birds, that when he took his many
>measurements on a series of samples of skeletons, and then came back and
>remeasured the first sample, there was no univariately significant
>difference between any of the measurements, but a discriminant function
>correctly identified most (maybe all) of them as being measured as the
>first or last sample, showing that he'd somehow changed how the
>measurements were judged in the course of measuring the intervening
>samples.
>
>I'd say that "biological significance" can occur only when you're
>testing a hypothesis -- otherwise "p" is just a statement of how
>different the samples are, and a hint about the kind of hypothesis you
>might want to test on other samples or in other ways.
>
>(I tried to leave this as a comment on the blog, but it didn't seem to
>want to take it).
>
>fred (newly resubscribed to CONCH-L after a lapse of years)
>------------------------------------------------------------
>             Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
>           Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
>        RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
>     on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
>       (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca
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