An epidemiologist is trying to discover the cause of a certain kind of cancer. He studies a group of 10,000 peo-ple for five years, measuring 48 different “factors” involv-ing eating habits, drinking habits, smoking, exercise, and so on. His object is to determine if there are any differ-ences in the means of these factors (variables) between those who developed the given cancer and those who didnot. He assumes that these variables are independent,even though there may be evidence to the contrary. Inan effort to be cautiously conservative, he uses the 0.01level of significance in all his statistical tests.(a) What is the probability that one of these factors willbe “associated with” the cancer, even if none of them is acausative factor?(b) What is the probability that more than one of thesefactors will be associated with the cancer, even if none ofthem is a causative factor?
An epidemiologist is trying to discover the cause of a
certain kind of cancer. He studies a group of 10,000 peo-
ple for five years, measuring 48 different “factors” involv-
ing eating habits, drinking habits, smoking, exercise, and
so on. His object is to determine if there are any differ-
ences in the means of these factors (variables) between
those who developed the given cancer and those who did
not. He assumes that these variables are independent,
even though there may be evidence to the contrary. In
an effort to be cautiously conservative, he uses the 0.01
level of significance in all his statistical tests.
(a) What is the probability that one of these factors will
be “associated with” the cancer, even if none of them is a
causative factor?
(b) What is the probability that more than one of these
factors will be associated with the cancer, even if none of
them is a causative factor?
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