Hello everyone,
this time I have a general question about model-building and the topic of dredging.
I know that dredging is evil in general...
But assume following situation:
1.) Build TSM model phi(t/t) p(.)
2.) You will get some "survival estimates" for TSM 1
3.) Take these estimates and establish for example 3 groups of similar 'survival' in TSM 1
4.) Now you could reduce the parameter number drastically and (of course) deviance by pooling the TSM1 intervals according to the estimates of step 2.)
Obviously, this is dredging. But could you 'apologize' for that, as the dredging refers to TSM1 which is obviously not the studies target? Because the target estimates are these for TSM 2+ .
So the question is, if this procedure would be acceptable if in turn the estimates for TSM 2+ become more accurate (if they do at all) ??
Thanks for your thoughts about that.
Hannes