I myself do epidemiologic research, which rarely calls for developing machine learning models. Instead, I spend my time developing logistic regression models that I have to be able to interpret for the broader scientific (and sometimes non-scientific) community. I have to be able to explain in some easy, risk-communication way not only the…

After a few biostatistics classes, I began fitting my first logistic regression model using my physician friend’s data on tumors excised from skin cancer patients. I realized that although we were very clear about the dependent variable we were trying to predict – a certain feature of the tumor – I really did not know how to pick the independent…