G&E CH 5

I like the framework that G&E have laid out in this chapter on the several different general approaches to statistical analysis, and I do think it is all worth reading fairly closely. That said, I think the simple example that they use (ant nests in forests and fields) to illustrate the different approaches (an excellent pedagogical approach, IMHO) is telling: Their descriptions of how one would go about implementing their "monte carlo" approach is clear and I expect would be easy (if tedious) for most any one at your level to implement using a spreadsheet. Their description of the standard parametric analysis is -- I think -- a reasonable compromise between overview and detail (which you'll get a a little later in the semester); after reading it I think you should have some sense of what F represents in an ANOVA (although not the ability to calculate it yet). As to Bayesian analysis -- I'll keep my opinion to myself for now, but I will prompt you with the following: after reading through this section, ask yourself if you could begin to put together the approach that you would need to follow in order to repeat the authors' analysis.

I do think they do a bit of a disservice to non-parametric statistics, and, given their ubiquity, maybe should have spent a bit more time on them. We will, ultimately, come back to some of the more popular of these approaches (e.g. chi square) in later chapters.