Re: [Phys-l] calibration

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 08/07/2007 11:57 AM, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> The author of my statistics textbook refers to x as "explanatory" 
> variable and to y as "response" variable. I suppose he does this 
> because the textbook is mostly for people who never had calculus.


More likely it's because of the naiveté of the author.  The students
may be naive also, but I doubt that's what's driving this.

Has the author ever looked at, say the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram?  
On the main sequence, does luminosity "explain" the color??  Or
does color "explain" the luminosity???
  http://astroguia.org/bitacoras/jandrochan/2007/01/21/las-estrellas-diagramas-de-temperaturaluminosidad/


Also:  In a heat capacity experiment, does the temperature "explain"
the energy??  Or does the energy "explain" the temperature???


Or even simpler:  If we graph height versus weight for a group of
people, does the height "explain" the weight??  Or does the weight
"explain" the height???


Most of all, why not just treat x and y on an equal footing?  AFAICT 
treating them differently is never helpful and often harmful.  Why 
are people even /tempted/ to introduce this sort of never-helpful 
complexity?