Minimum Bias
Message posted by Susan on December 7, 2000 at 12:00 AM (ET)

I would appreciate a definition of what this phrase means. Thanks.

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Re: Minimum Bias
Message posted by Phil on December 9, 2000 at 12:00 AM (ET)

In the field of mathematical statistics, "estimation" is a major area of study. Various statistics are used to estimate parameters of a population. For example, the arithmetic mean of a sample (x-bar) is used to estimate the true mean of the population (parameter: mu).

Estimators have different properties. One properity is bias. An unbiased estimator is one whose "Expected value" equals the parameter. You can look up "Expectation" in any advanced statistics book.

Minimum bias estimator would be the estimator out of a group of estimators with the minimum bias. That makes it good in one sense, but not necessarily in other ways.

If you are not a math or statistics major, I doubt anyone would bring it up.