4 ms·
Say you are trying to distinguish between a placebo and a cyanide pill; test subjects are young rats (base rate of death extremely low). How large of a sample
by monkeypizza 6y ago
Say you are trying to distinguish between a placebo and a cyanide pill; test subjects are young rats (base rate of death extremely low). How large of a sample size do you need? I think one control, one test subject is enough to be certain, because the base rate of death is insanely low, when measured on a per-minute basis.
Sample sizes can be small and still very significant when the effect is large.
- gvjddbnvdrbv 6y agoI would want about four of each rat still. The control could die of something else...
- samatman 6y agoI'm quite confident the only reason to use four rats in a study of cyanide is that you really want to kill two rats.
- steerablesafe 6y agoYeah, because you already have a very well-established prior on the effects of cyanide.
- buran77 6y ago> when the effect is large You mean when the effect is guaranteed. Cyanide is reasonably guaranteed to have the expected effect every time which is why you don't even need the control. With only 4 test subjects you can't really draw a strong conclusion.