Timeline for Can a categorical variable be divided by a numerical variable?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
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| Jan 30, 2012 at 15:56 | comment | added | whuber♦ | Your comment, Maxim, perceptively suggests that the difficulty here is due to confusing an outcome with a random variable. An answer to a question (the outcome) is not the same thing as the number used to code that answer (the random variable). That's precisely why the random variable is created: so that one can do arithmetic with it! One might then wonder about the apparent arbitrariness of the random variable: what happens when a different encoding is used (such as male=1, female=-1). The answer is that the formula for $d$ may change but the statistical inference will not. | |
| Jan 29, 2012 at 23:29 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackStats/status/163765680976576512 | ||
| Jan 29, 2012 at 21:09 | comment | added | Maxim V. Pavlov | Although the question has already been answered mathematics-wise, I think a philosophical answer would appear to be more relevant in this case. I agree with the question author - in reliance to the reality, such division makes no sense. In general, a binary categorical variable represents an answer to the question "Does it exist?" Whereas a continuous variable represents an answer to the question "What it's measure is in comparison to...". Those are different fundamental concepts. | |
| S Jan 29, 2012 at 19:26 | history | suggested | gung - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
I just 'blocked' the equation, because the subscripts, e.g., where hard to read
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| Jan 29, 2012 at 19:22 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 29, 2012 at 19:26 | |||||
| Jan 29, 2012 at 19:01 | answer | added | Peter Ellis | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jan 29, 2012 at 18:10 | vote | accept | Tu.2 | ||
| Jan 29, 2012 at 17:54 | history | edited | Tu.2 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 136 characters in body
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| Jan 29, 2012 at 17:39 | history | edited | onestop |
edited tags
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| Jan 29, 2012 at 17:38 | answer | added | onestop | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jan 29, 2012 at 17:38 | answer | added | Michelle | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jan 29, 2012 at 17:11 | history | edited | onestop | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
link paper title to JSTOR copy
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| Jan 29, 2012 at 17:06 | history | asked | Tu.2 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |