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Re: Fw: min / max and empty intervals - Entire and Missing Data

Ian McIntosh wrote:

Let's take a concrete example.  For the set of all adults in the USA on
July 1st 2011, measure their height.  Since there's some measurement error
and height can vary  throughout the day, use intervals with reasonable
bounds.

Now find out the minimum and maximum heights.  No problem.

But what if you only have data for 1% of the people?  If you treat the
unknowns as Entire, the minimum height is -oo and the maximum +oo.
And that's the only thing you can say with certainty. Interval analysis is about certainty, not about the estimation of probabilities. The latter is the domain of statistics, and will never be certain.