Hello,
I have a question about scientific honesty/integrity. A Post Doc with whom I was working recently told me that it is acceptable to omit certain data points, if they fall beyond two standard deviations from the mean. At the time, we were working with an N of 10 and she omitted one data point. The other nine fell within two SDs of the mean.
Is this really a scientifically-acceptable thing to do? I cannot imagine that it is, because if you do that, then surely you are artificially reducing variation within your data? Surely it would end up looking like it fits a pattern, which may not exist in reality?
Thanks,
Tri.