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From: ems@amdahl.UUCP (ems)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Placebos CANNOT cause cancer!!!
Message-ID: <1604@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 17:42:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdahl.1604
Posted: Mon Jun  3 17:42:04 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Jun-85 19:00:41 EDT
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In reading my prior posting I noticed that there was a possible
interpretation of the statistical discussion that was not what I
had intended.  That is, I refer to the size of the standard deviation
in a way that might be taken as meaning that is could be derived
from the sample size.

This was not the interpretation I had intended.  The standard deviation of
a population is fixed and independent of the sample size.  What I
should have said is that it was desired to find the confidence interval
(or error factor) for this observation given a small sample size and a
presumed small standard deviation.

I hope that this brief exposition on statistics has not caused too
many of you to fall asleep at your terminals, but I felt compelled to
post the observation myself before 20 to 30 math majors posted their
stats texts... :-)

The offending lines follow:
> 
> First, as I remember it, the question was asked (paraphrase) - or is
> the sample size too small ... -
> This would indicate to me an understanding of the basic statistics,
> but a disire to avoid digging out the stats book to calculate the
> sample size needed for a small standard deviation when other
> important factors were not available to the person asking.  It did
> not show, to me, that mako "didn't get" the statistics, but rather
> that they understood the statistics and were asking for an
> estimate of standard deviation for that sample size.
> 
> 
-- 

E. Michael Smith  ...!{hplabs,ihnp4,amd,nsc}!amdahl!ems

Tilapia Zilli is the way and the light.

This is the obligatory disclaimer of everything.