>That means that there is a one-in-twenty chance that the alleged
>association between "consulting a lawyer" and "less improvement in
>NPOS" was wholly accidental.
So, a nineteen in 20 chance that it was deliberate? I prefer short odds myself. To be honest though, I'm not a gambling man, don't see the point. Don't have much faith in statistics either, frankly I distrust the motives of most statistical analysis. I always want to know what the agenda of the people behind them are. "Lies, damn lies and statistics," as the saying goes.
>Also, there is a matter of publication bias: "a tendency _on
>average_ to produce results that appear significant, because
>negative or near neutral results are almost never published" (John
>Brignell <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~jeb/cv.htm>, "Publication
>Bias,"
Ah yes, motive. You're learning. ;-)
><http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/publication_bias.htm>). It is likely
>that more than twenty studies on the same topic are conducted
>worldwide, but they don't get published because they show no
>correlation (useful to the ruling class) between "consulting a
>lawyer" and "less improvement in NPOS."
I wonder why? Oops, motive again.
>On the other hand, the association between consulting a lawyer and
>"a greater chance of still having treatment (P < 0.01) after 1 year"
>is on a much surer statistical footing, as it is documented with
>only a one-percent chance that the result was purely accidental.
>
>I conclude that, statistically speaking, consulting a lawyer is
>likely to be a sensible course of action if your injury and pain are
>severe. A lawyer can't make you better, but a lawyer is unlikely to
>make you improve less,
I agree. But only because I took into account the likely motives of the accident victims who consulted a lawyer as opposed to the other kind. This saved me the trouble of reading all that extensive research and quoting all the statistical gobbledegook.
It stands out like a dog's dick that consulting a lawyer can't actually damage your health. There's a more obvious answer to the correlation.
>and a lawyer is likely to help you fight the government, the
>insurance industry, and the employer and get disability benefits and
>medical treatment if you want them.
Whereas the alternative is to just go back to work. You don't have to convince me that getting a lawyer is the preferrable option, I'm a dole bludger remember? ;-)
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas