Chapter 7.3, Problem 6CS

In an article in the Journal of Statistics Education (vol. 4. no. 2), Allen Shoemaker describes a study that was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).* It is generally accepted that the mean body temperature of an adult human is 98.6°F. In his article, Shoemaker uses the data from the JAMA article to test this hypothesis. Here is a summary of his test.

Claim: The body temperature of adults is 98.6°F.

$\begin{array}{l}{H}_0:\mu =98.6°\text{F}\text{(Claim)}\\ H_a:\mu \ne 98.6°\text{F}\end{array}$

Sample Size: n = 130

Population: Adult human temperatures (Fahrenheit)

Distribution: Approximately normal

Test Statistics: $\bar{x}=98.25$, s = 0.73

* Data for the JAMA article were collected from healthy men and women, ages 18 to 40, at the University of Maryland Center for Vaccine Development, Baltimore.

6. The conventional “normal” body temperature was established by Carl Wunderlich over 100 years ago. What were possible sources of error in Wunderlich’s sampling procedure?