On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Nick Cox<[email protected]> wrote:
> I am happy that any Stata Journal columns of mine are useful, but that
> really wasn't the point I was making. Dichotomising continuous variables
> throws away information. Usually that's a bad, or at least a dubious,
> idea.
That makes sense. But often times we just want a few "representative"
statistics from a rv, rather than the full, detailed description of
its distribution. Etc. If we could use all the information about the
world we receive through our senses without throwing most of it away
by processing it, I guess we would.
On another thing, Neil makes a good point about how we should present
our questions. I don't want to seem ingrate. I appreciate the time
you all take to read the questions from us beginners and try to answer
them.
PV
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