Some Difficulties of Interpretation Encountered in the Application of the Chi-Square Test

Excerpts

I have a considerable interest in mathematical statistics, but very little competency in it. You will not hear anything about cards or black and white balls from me. I shall speak as a practitioner who has frequently applied the test to real observations, made seriously for the solution of concrete scientific problems.

For we may assume that it is practically certain that any series of real observations does not actually follow a normal curve with absolute exactitude in all respects, and no matter how small the discrepancy between the normal curve and the true curve of observations, the chi-square P will be small if the sample has a sufficientlylarge numberof observationsin it.

— Page 526

Reference

Joseph Berkson “Some Difficulties of Interpretation Encountered in the Application of the Chi-Square Test” (1938) DOI: 10.2307/2279690

@Article{berkson1938,
  title = {Some Difficulties of Interpretation Encountered in the Application of the Chi-Square Test},
  volume = {33},
  issn = {0162-1459},
  url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2279690},
  doi = {10.2307/2279690},
  number = {203},
  journal = {Journal of the American Statistical Association},
  publisher = {JSTOR},
  author = {Berkson, Joseph},
  year = {1938},
  month = {sep},
  pages = {526}
}