[R] In fact this is a Stats question, but... "The return."

[eesteves at ualg.pt]

Dear All (particularly Peter, Steve, Bert, Ben F, Ben B, Christian and Gerrit)
After clicking the "send msg" button of my previous msg I felt that  
probably it's better to leave the "citing issue" out of it all!
Nonetheless, what I feel now (as a - fish - biologist aspiring to be a  
reasonable user of statistics) is that every question - even the  
seemingly simpler ones - has several perspectives (and even from the  
statistics point of view). Also, I'm trying to avoid the most commmon  
"mistakes" while using stats even though in a non-stats context  
sometimes it's very hard to explain the why, how, etc.
Thanks for every reply. Regards, Eduardo.

Quoting Peter Dalgaard <p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk>:

> eesteves at ualg.pt wrote:
>> *Thanks* all those who took the time to help me (even if the  
>> "question" was not related to - the use of - R).
>>
>> Now I think I can soundly make my point w/ the referee (can I use  
>> your replies? If so I intend to properly cite its use?!?).
> In general, I think it is best not to cite this kind of replies, at  
> least not in publications. Steve E's note is a bit of an eye-opener  
> in that regard: There could in fact be serious problems in your  
> analysis without respondents realizing it (e.g., you could have 1700  
> larvae, but they came from only 10 batches of eggs with a strong  
> within-batch correlation). Judging from the text below I wouldn't  
> expect that this is the case, but the risk is there. The general  
> problem is that it is very difficult to give credit without also  
> assigning some level of responsibility.
>
>    -pd
>>
>> Regards, Eduardo Esteves
>>
>> ps - Sorry for not explaining the "biological details" of my  
>> posting: RNA/DNA is the ratio of RNA content to DNA content  
>> obtained for individual fish larvae (plus for each one I noted if  
>> it had visible prey items in the gut or not, thus the levels Prey  
>> and Empty of factor Gut); and sl is the standard length (distance  
>> from the tip of snout to the posterior extremity of the hypurals,  
>> the expanded bones at the end of the backbone that support the  
>> caudal fin, in mm) of the specimens. In the MS, I consider the  
>> relationship RNA/DNA to sl to be biologically irrelevant (due to  
>> the very low r2) although statistically significant. Furthermore,  
>> no effect of gut content upon that relationship is significant  
>> (facilitating further analysis of pooled data).
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>
> -- 
>   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
>  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
> (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph:  (+45) 35327918
> ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)              FAX: (+45) 35327907
>
>
>