On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 5:19 AM, Noah Silverman <noahsilverman@ucla.edu>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have some data, that when plotted looks very close to a log-normal
> distribution.  My goal is to build a regression model to test how this
> variable responds to several independent variables.
>

 [snip]

When I try to build a simple model, I also get an error:
>
> l <- glm(y~ x, family=gaussian(link="log"))
>
> Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) :  cannot find valid starting values:
> please specify some
>
>
Duncan has described the problems with the lognormal.  I will just point
out that this 'simple model' is not lognormal.  It is a model with normal
errors and log link, ie.

y ~ N(mu, sigma^2)
log(mu) = x \beta


    -thomas

-- 
Thomas Lumley
Professor of Biostatistics
University of Auckland

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

