Bower: To make matters worse, psychology journals began to publish papers only if they reported statistically significant findings, prompting a surprisingly large number of investigators to massage their data — either by gaming the system or cheating — to get below the P value of 0.05 that granted that status. Inevitably, bogus findings and chance associations began to proliferate.
Tag: P-values
Rob Sheldon on why statisticians are in a panic
The panic in sociology, psychology, nutrition science, and pharmacology has been growing as >70% papers with “p-values” smaller than 0.05 are discovered to be unrepeatable.
Pushback against abandoning “statistical significance” in science
Of course, as science embraces post-modernism, “irrefutable nonsense” could be the new standard. Along with ever more strenuous demands that we trust science.
Abandon statistical significance, learn to live with uncertainty, scientists demand
Let’s see where this goes. Will it lead to less magic with numbers or more and bigger magic?