USE OF SCALE INVARIANCE IN EVALUATING JUDEMENT INDICATORS

摘要

Indicators are used to draw conclusions about ecological endpoints when these endpoints cannot be measured directly. In many cases, inferences about an endpoint are only ossible because assumptions ahve been made about the relationship between indicator and endpoint; we refere to such indicators as judgement indicators. The validity of inferences made using a judgement indicator can be gauged by examining the known or assumed form of the general relationship between indicator and endpoint. The rules for this kind of inference are a consequence of scale invariance, which originates from measurement theory.