Clifford Qualls, Ph.D., the Research Center biostatistician, and I grouped together HRS questions using the “clinical cluster” or skandha method and compared this method of analysis to a large number of alternative purely statistical models. The Abhidharma’s technique was as good as, if not superior to, ones developed solely upon mathematical considerations. Since the computer-derived classification of results was no better than the clinical cluster one, and since using the skandhas made more sense intuitively, the Buddhist classification system won out. Other groups have since used the HRS
...more
