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Re: st: RE: Mean test in a Likert Scale
From
Maarten Buis <[email protected]>
To
[email protected]
Subject
Re: st: RE: Mean test in a Likert Scale
Date
Mon, 3 Sep 2012 11:27:00 +0200
On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Nick Cox wrote:
> Econometricians' practice seems almost invariably looser than that --
> and a good thing too -- although the idea that an analysis is correct
> or incorrect, and no shades of grey, still seems pervasive.
What amuses me are the occasional reference to "correct models", which
is just a contradiction in terms. A model is by definition a
simplification of reality, and simplifying reality is really central
to what a model is. If reality where so simple we could understand it
without simplification we would not need a model. However,
simplification is just another word for "wrong in some useful way". So
a correct model either does not simplify and is thus not a model, or
it is not as correct as the author thinks it is.
-- Maarten
---------------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
WZB
Reichpietschufer 50
10785 Berlin
Germany
http://www.maartenbuis.nl
---------------------------------
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