selection effect: An influence on the probability that certain phenomena will be detected or selected, which can alter the outcome of a survey.
selection effect - (n.)
The tendency for a conclusion based on observations to be influenced by the method used to select the objects for observation.
A selection effect in the study of the magnitude-redshift relation in cosmology.
Observational selection effects must first be understood when they cannot be eradicated. The foremost example is Malmquist bias, the fact that in a typical flux-limited sample we see only atypically bright objects at larger distances.
"An Estimate of the Age Distribution of Terrestrial Planets in the Universe: Quantifying Metallicity as a Selection Effect". Icarus 151: 307. doi:10.1006/icar.2001.6607. arΧiv:astro-ph/0012399.
("Selection effects" like this one, in which Nature shows us "what she wishes," pervade science: the population of microbes far exceeds that of elephants, yet only the elephants are visible without some kind of aid.) It is then quite surprising to ...
Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy. Routledge. ISBN 0415938589
* Craig, William Lane, 1987, "Critical review of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle," International Philosophical Ouarterly 27: 437- 47.
This is not an observational selection effect, since a planet can be detected about a star equally well regardless of the eccentricity of its orbit.
One could argue that the anthropic principle, which notes that in many ways apparently arbitrary parameters in the Universe have values conducive to the existence of intelligent life, is not just a selection effect but rather a choice by a Creator.
Things like distances to stars, their masses, radii, composition and speeds. Also HR diagram, spectral types, and spectroscopic parallax. The dangers of selection effects and biased samples are also discussed with the application of finding what a ...
Since GRBs occur along an axis, as opposed to an expanding spherically, their lower power and lack of afterglow could simply be the observational "selection effect" whereby the Earth is at the very edge of the GRB "cone" and so astronomers only ...
 See also: Dwarf, Light, Galaxy, Mass, Luminosity
  
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