[R] Can I use "lme" to deal with grouping data when I only get one data point per group?

[Dieter Menne]

Ruixiao Lu <tinypenguin <at> gmail.com> writes:

> I have a question for using "lme". Say, I have 6 data points and they belong 
> to six groups (one group factor). So there is no replicates for each group 
> and I cannot separate the with-in group variation from the between group 
> variation. 
> But when I try to use "lme" to deal with it, it gave the answers for both 
> with-in group variation and the between group variation! The statement is as 
> below:

((Slightly modified by DM))

fac=as.factor(c(1:6))
y=c(-0.3465181, -0.2019839, -0.7610653, -0.1992943, -0.1663348, 0.2811794)
data.y=data.frame(y,fac)
y.g=groupedData(y~1|fac)
intervals(y.g) ## and you will see ....

Similar example on page 27 of Pinheiro/Bates

Dieter Menne