Wasserstein 2016 The American Statistician
Wasserstein RL, Lazar NA (2016) The ASA's statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose. The American Statistician 70:129-33. |
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Wasserstein RL, Lazar NA (2016) The American Statistician
Abstract: In February, 2014, George Cobb, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Statistics at Mount Holyoke College, posed these questions to an ASA discussion forum: Q: Why do so many colleges and grad schools teach p = .05? A: Because that's still what the scientific community and journal editors use. Q: Why do so many people still use p = 0.05? A: Because that's what they were taught in college or grad school. Cobbâs concern was a long-worrisome circularity in the sociology of science based on the use of bright lines such as P < 0.05 : âWe teach it because itâs what we do; we do it because itâs what we teach.â This concern was brought to the attention of the ASA Board.
The ASA Board was also stimulated by highly visible discussions over the last few years. For example, ScienceNews (Siegfried, 2010) wrote: âItâs scienceâs dirtiest secret: The âscientific methodâ of testing hypotheses by statistical analysis stands on a flimsy foundation.â A November, 2013, article in Phys.org Science News Wire (2013) cited ânumerous deep flawsâ in null hypothesis significance testing. A ScienceNews article (Siegfried, 2014) on February 7, 2014, said âstatistical techniques for testing hypothesesâŠhave more flaws than Facebookâs privacy policies.â A week later, statistician and âSimply Statisticsâ blogger Jeff Leek responded. âThe problem is not that people use P-values poorly,â Leek wrote, âit is that the vast majority of data analysis is not performed by people properly trained to perform data analysisâ (Leek, 2014). ...
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