Statistics and Data Analysis for Microarrays Using R and Bioconductor, 2nd Edition

232 Statistics and Data Analysis for Microarrays Using R and Bioconductor

8.4.1 Degrees of freedom as independent error estimates

Often, the goal of an experiment is to measure some quantity X, such as

the weight of a object. In reality, we know that no individual measur ement

will provide the exact value, so what we are actually doing is take a number

of measurements and estimate the quantity of interest to the best of our

abilities. The simplest experiment that would provide any information would

involve taking a single measurement of this object’s weight. Le t’s denote this

measurement by X

1

. After performing this exp eriment, one co uld say that ...