Models: What is a model?
- Q: In how far is a map a model of the reality?
- Q: In how far is the mean(age) in this class a model of age in this class?
- Behind any model there is a (joint) distribution
- Model summarizes (joint) distribution with fewer parameters
- e.g. a mean; or intercept/coefficents in linear model
- Statistical Model (SM) (Wikipedia):
- Class of a mathematical model (MM)
- Embodies assumptions about generation of sample data from data of a larger population
- Assumptions describe set of probability distributions
- e.g. sampling distribution of reg. coefficent = normally or t-distributed
- Inherent probability distributions distinguish SMs from MMs (but see also Nonparametric statistics)