Talk:Mean squared error

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[edit] MSE

The article does not give explicit formulae of the MSE for the estimators in the example. Could someone fill this in?

Someone has suggested that the page for Root mean square deviation (RMSD) be merged with mean squared error. I do not think that it makes sense to do this for several reasons: 1. MSE is a measure of error, whereas RMSD method for comparing two biological structures. 2. RMSD is used almost exclusively in the context of protein folding, whereas MSE is used to describe statistics 3. Merging the articles would result in losing the meaning of the RMSD article.

Note that root mean squared deviation is different than root mean squared error.

  1. RMSE = estimator of average error, RMSD = estimator of average distance. They're measuring the same thing: differences or variation.
  2. RMSD is used in disciplines other than bioinformatics/biostatistics—try googling RMSD and "electrical engineering", for example.
  3. Merging the articles should preserve the RMSD tie-in.

[edit] Content

Sweeping critique: This article is pretty useless to anyone but a math major.

Specific suggestion: If someone agrees with me on the following statement, then it would be helpful if added into the article--

"MSE is also sometimes called the variance; RMSE is also sometimes called the standard deviation."

I'm pretty sure that's correct, but I won't add it without confirmation.

  • Agreed that the article could be made more friendly to those of use who haven't studied statistical theory. BTW, MSE and RMSE estimate the variance and standard deviation. To equate them would be inaccurate. --DanielPenfield 17:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
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