What assertions?

Authors: Macmillan KL
Publication: New Zealand Veterinary Journal, Volume 26, Issue 1-2, pp 35-36, Jan 1978
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Animal type: General
Subject Terms: Disease surveillance, Epidemiology, Veterinary profession
Article class: Correspondence

---

Abstract: Notwithstanding a strong personal dislike for the irreverent and irrelevant “sucking-egg saw”, I found the papers quoted by Webster to be of a comparable standard to others on which his reputation is founded. I can assure him that I am well aware of the time-consuming nature of classifying field data from a large number of herds. In the light of his own experience, particularly in relation to the first paper he has referred to in his reply. I find his criticism of “the sheer scale” of our survey which used computerised analyses with over 90,000 breeding records rather misplaced. He used more tedious “hand-sorting” with “some 24,000 cows in 550 Taranaki herds”. Possibly his survey was one which also involved “a large expenditure ofhighly paid labour” or, was it more an expenditure of time by highly skilled labour when Webster did his survey in 1929? Reading of how Webster obtained a copy of R. A. Fisher`s statistical text was interesting but not surprising…

---