The AstroStat Slog » CCW http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog Weaving together Astronomy+Statistics+Computer Science+Engineering+Intrumentation, far beyond the growing borders Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:05:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4 Mmm.. donuts http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/far-side/ http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/far-side/#comments Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:01:06 +0000 vlk http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/far-side/ Mmm.. chi-square!

The withering criticisms Hyunsook has been directing towards the faulty use of chisquare by astronomers brings to mind this classic comment by [astronomer] Jeremy Drake during the 2005 Chandra Calibration Workshop:

Remember that classic Far Side cartoon of the dog being admonished and only hearing its name? Well, that’s what happens when statisticians admonish astronomers. They might say “don’t use chisq”, and all we here is “chisq”.

Update [6/23/2010]: We had the modified cartoons here to illustrate the issue a bit more figuratively, but apparently Gary Larson doesn’t like that, so we have removed them.

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