This is an unusual statistics book in several respects. It attempts to explain the
statistical methodology needed to answer several biological questions. This is in
contrast to books that try to teach statistical techniques and hope that the reader
can find the appropriate contexts in which to use them. Many an applied scientist
has seen this hope turn into despair, not really due to a fault of his own. Statistics
without context can be counter-intuitive and can mislead the reader with terms
such as ‘significant’, ‘power’, ‘efficient’, ‘consistent’, ‘maximum likelihood’, ‘noninformative
prior’, and so on.
We focus on a very specific scientific technique—microarrays—and a set of
scientific questions related to this technique. We try to show how sound statistical
methods can be used to answer these questions.