Statistical significance and its part in science downfalls
Scientific American: Mind and Brain
Imagine if there were a simple single statistical measure everybody could use with any set of data and it would reliably separate true from false. Oh, the things we would know! Unrealistic to expect such wizardry though, huh?
Yet, statistical significance is commonly treated as though it is that magic wand. Take a null hypothesis or look for any association between factors in a data set and abracadabra ! Get a " p value" over or under 0.05 and you can be 95% certain it's either a fluke or it isn't. You can eliminate the play of chance! You can separate the signal from the noise!
[More]
Original Article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=statistical-significance-and-its-part-in-science-downfalls
No comments:
Post a Comment