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Reply to “The MHC and body odors: arbitrary effects caused by shifts of mean pleasantness”

Nature Genetics volume 31, pages 237–238 (2002)Cite this article

In reply—–

In his comments on our paper1, Wedekind raises two separate issues. First, he mentions the problem of 'pseudoreplication', although he does not indicate how he believes this is relevant in our case. As defined by Hurlbert3 (who seems to have coined the term as used in this context), pseudoreplication refers to the treatment of multiple measurements on a single experimental unit as though they came from separate independent units, leading to an overestimate of the amount of information in the data. For example, consider two different studies of chemotherapy and tumor growth in mice. In the first, one tumor is created in the right hind leg of each of 12 mice, and they are then treated. In the second, tumors are created in both hind legs of 6 mice (2 tumors per mouse). Both studies evaluate 12 tumors, but the first provides more information because it includes twice as many independent units of analysis. In the second study, the two tumors in each mouse are pseudoreplicates, as there is the possibility for within-mouse correlation in the outcome.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Mind and Biology and Department of Psychology, 5730 South Woodlawn Avenue, University of Chicago, Chicago, 60637, Illinois, USA

    Martha K. McClintock, Suma Jacob & Bethanne Zelano

  2. Department of Health Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Phil Schumm

  3. Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Carole Ober

Authors
  1. Martha K. McClintock
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  2. Phil Schumm
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  3. Suma Jacob
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  4. Bethanne Zelano
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  5. Carole Ober
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martha K. McClintock.

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McClintock, M., Schumm, P., Jacob, S. et al. Reply to “The MHC and body odors: arbitrary effects caused by shifts of mean pleasantness”. Nat Genet 31, 237–238 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/0702-237b

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