| Sean McHugh 2004-09-28, 4:17 am |
|
No One wrote:
>
> Sean McHugh <smchugh@shoal.net.au> writes:
>
>
> Merriam Webster produces a decent dictionary but does not do anything
> even vaguely resembling research.
So are you saying that you have a problem with the definition in
Merriam Webster?
> The problem with extrapolating in
> this case is that you have no way of knowing if the 30 states where
> you have good data are all representative of the other 20.
That is another matter. My issue was Dennis' rather sneering
comment implying that it wasn't extrapolation.
> In fact, you have plenty of reasons to believe the remaining 20 are
> different: public health departments for individual states are
> evalutated on how> well they do at eliminating disease, but work
> with a limited budget. If a state has a very low rate of HIV or
> AIDS, the natural inclination of the public health departments will
> be to spend their funds on the areas where they have a major problem.
> So the 20 that aren't up to CDC reporting probably have a lower
> infection rate than elsewhere, but how much lower is not known.
I am not sure I see that that would necessarrilty work against
Zim's point.
> BTW, for STDs, this is not surprising. Young adults in general,
> particularly sexually active ones, tend to want to live where they
> will find lots of opportunities, and you aren't going to find that in
> rural Utah or other states with a low population density. So it is
> hardly surprising that the most at-risk groups move to where there is
> a lot of night life, and the public health departments react
> appropriately, trying to get the "most bang for the buck."
I believe that regardless of the other 20 states for which data are
not available, it is valid to illustrate a point with the 30
states where data are available.
Best Regards,
Sean McHugh
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