Department of Statistics: Ordinal data and 'ordinal' analyses 
7 March 2013
4pm - 5pm
Venue: Room B11, Basement level, Science Centre Building 303, 38 Princes Street, Auckland CBD
Host: Department of Statistics
Cost: Free
Contact email: office@stat.auckland.ac.nz
Speaker:
Prof. Thomas Lumley
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland
Ordinal data, where the measurement process ensures agreement on the ordering but not on the numerical value, are common. There is a plausible argument that analyses of ordinal data should not impose particular numerical scores but should rely only on the known ordering. I will argue against this, showing that any two-sample two-sided test that does not reduce to comparing a one-sample summary statistic is either non-transitive or has even worse problems. I will also argue that the desire for ordinal analyses is misplaced, because tests compare whole distributions, which are not uniquely ordered, rather than single data points. There will be cameo appearances by non-separable Banach spaces and pathological counterexamples, but the majority of the talk should be broadly accessible.
For more informaiton about the speaker, please see http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/showperson?firstname=Thomas&surname=Lumley
The talk will be followed by refreshments and an opportunity to meet with the speaker.
