Disputatio:Dependentia (statistica)

Die 23 Martii 2024 — Estne haec pagina ad “Correlatio (statistica)” movenda?

Haec est disputatio petitoria Vicipaediae quae ad formulam {{Movenda}} attinet, die 23 Martii 2024 paginae additam.

Ambo nomina “dependentiae” et “correlationis” mihi videntur esse scientifica (haud classica). Credo Translinguam suadere nobis ut nomen “correlationis” praeferamus. --Grufo (disputatio) 05:27, 23 Martii 2024 (UTC)

Pars accepta a: Disputatio Usoris:Grufo § Moving Dependentia to Correlatio

Hey! (Forgive me for writing in English but I just woke up and my Latin brain isn't operational just yet)

I saw you put a template on Dependentia (statistica) to propose we move it to a "Correlatio" page. I have to turn down the proposal but I'd rather explain it to you before I take the template down.

Unfortunately dependency and correlation, and least per my source (which is the descriptive stats textbook I studied on 4 years ago while still a freshman and that I assume is reliable), aren't the same thing, though superficially related. While dependency is chiefly used for qualitative variables and simply measures whether there is no independence, correlation is more specific and measures whether the data is aptly summarized by a (non-horizontal) line and is basically exclusively used for quantitative, numerical variables. (I may have simplified it but I wanted to underline the difference).

In fact despite the similarity the indices you construct to measures these two properties are just radically different; the chi-squared index you can see I wrote about in the Dependentia article itself would make little sense if the data were a cloud of points on a graph. Likewise, the R-squared index, the most popular correlation index you yourself possibly already know about, is badly suited for non-ordinable variables, including the example I made in the Dependentia article; it makes no sense to say that men are a lower value than women or vice versa.

In fact, I have a sandbox in the works for the article about correlation I'll eventually get around to finishing.

So... opinions? Toadino2 Combibite hic mecum! 09:22, 23 Martii 2024 (UTC)

Hi Toadino2. I am no way an expert, so thank you for clarifying. If it is OK for you I move the discussion here, so that it remains visible to anyone who will have my same doubts (feel free to move it back to my talk page if you feel otherwise). On a side note, I had also added the Wikidata link d:Q186290 to the page, so I guess that will have to be corrected accordingly. --Grufo (disputatio) 09:50, 23 Martii 2024 (UTC)

No worries! I also checked en:Correlation and because the two concepts are grouped I can kinda see where you got this idea; however, they also specified in a paragraph that dependence and correlation are not exactly the same. I have also personally observed that statistic terminology isn't 100% uniform - sometimes there are slight differences between authors, languages or universities, and that may have contributed. And since we have no Latin-based statistics, well, I'm afraid in these rare cases we're stuck with uncertainty.

That being said, the Wikidata link and the other Wikipedias apparently conform to what you had in mind, so I'm very unsure now. I suppose you could also have a single page talking about both dependence and correlation proper, and then we could link to all the other pages on correlation in other languages, but it still feels incorrect to me, and it could also make the whole article feel incoherent. Toadino2 Combibite hic mecum! 09:03, 24 Martii 2024 (UTC)

Correlatio is an obvious Latin back-formation from the international scientific term correlation, but Traupman says the pure Latin for the concept is mutua ratio. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:06, 24 Martii 2024 (UTC)

That's interesting.

However my knee-jerk reaction is that shifting to that would make the article unreadable and nobody would understand what we're talking about. Especially considering that correlatio is literally a Latin word and even one a Classical speaker could plausibly coin, I don't think we need to go overboard with making sure our Latin is that pure. Toadino2 Combibite hic mecum! 15:39, 24 Martii 2024 (UTC)

“Shifting to that would make the article unreadable”: I agree. For as much as I love restoring classicism I think that with science, at least when we don't have clear indications from sources, “back-formations” (a.k.a. “scientific Latin”) are fine. Consider also that often what on a first sight might look like a modern back-formation is actually medieval Latin. For instance Du Cange translates correlatio as a synonym of mutua relatio in a text from 1276:

Tanquam ingrati filii subtrahentes, et quantum in se est, in correlatione et sollicitudine mutui affectus patris ad filios quærentes inducere sectionem.

That said, mutua relatio would also be acceptable – I am not sure if prefereable to correlatio though. Mutua ratio instead seems a bit too distant for me. As for the scientific difference between dependence and correlation, I am not expert enough. --Grufo (disputatio) 09:22, 25 Martii 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Grufo here: "correlatio" is not a back-formation. It's not classical either; but statistics as a whole is not a classical subject, and "correlatio" should be perfectly easy for a Latin reader to analyse. Note these citations from Bede and Robert Grosseteste, both major medieval authors (see DMLBS and Gaffiot). I would stick with it. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:31, 25 Martii 2024 (UTC)

To clarify this comment, I am only talking about the acceptability of "correlatio" as a Latin term. I think it passes that test and would be preferable to "mutua relatio", pace Traupman. I don't really want to take sides on whether "correlatio" is the first best choice for this article: I'm not a statistician, very far from it :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:56, 25 Martii 2024 (UTC)