Monthly Archives: June 2016

Richard Gill: “Integrity or fraud… or just questionable research practices?” (Is Gill too easy on them?)

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Mayo
Professor Gill

Professor Gill

Professor Richard Gill
Statistics Group
Mathematical Institute
Leiden University

It was statistician Richard Gill who first told me about Diederik Stapel (see an earlier post on Diederik). We were at a workshop on Error in the Sciences at Leiden in 2011. I was very lucky to have Gill be assigned as my commentator/presenter—he was excellent! As I was explaining some data problems to him, he suddenly said, “Some people don’t bother to collect data at all!” That’s when I learned about Stapel.

Committees often turn to Gill when someone’s work is up for scrutiny of bad statistics or fraud, or anything in between. Do you think he’s being too easy on researchers when he says, about a given case:

“data has been obtained by some combination of the usual ‘questionable research practices’ [QRPs] which are prevalent in the field in question. Everyone does it this way, in fact, if you don’t, you’d never get anything published. …People are not deliberately cheating: they honestly believe in their theories and believe the data is supporting them.”

Isn’t that the danger in relying on deeply felt background beliefs?  Have our attitudes changed (toward QRPs) over the past 3 years (harsher or less harsh)? Here’s a talk of his I blogged 3 years ago (followed by a letter he allowed me to post). I reflect on the pseudoscientific nature of the ‘recovered memories’ program in one of the Geraerts et al. papers in a later post. Continue reading →

Categories: 3-year memory lane, junk science, Statistical fraudbusting, Statistics | 4 Comments

What do these share in common: m&ms, limbo stick, ovulation, Dale Carnegie? Are we lowering the bar?

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Mayo
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For entertainment only

In a post 3 years ago (“What do these share in common: m&m’s, limbo stick, ovulation, Dale Carnegie? Sat night potpourri”), I expressed doubts about expending serious effort to debunk the statistical credentials of studies that most readers without any statistical training would regard as “for entertainment only,” dubious, or pseudoscientific quackery. It needn’t even be that the claim is implausible, what’s implausible is that it has been well probed in the experiment at hand. Given the attention being paid to such examples by some leading statisticians, and scores of replication researchers over the past 3 years–attention that has been mostly worthwhile–maybe the bar has been lowered. What do you think? Anyway, this is what I blogged 3 years ago. (Oh, I decided to put in a home-made cartoon!) Continue reading →

Categories: junk science, replication research, Statistics | 2 Comments

Some statistical dirty laundry: have the stains become permanent?

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Mayo
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Right after our session at the SPSP meeting last Friday, I chaired a symposium on replication that included Brian Earp–an active player in replication research in psychology (Replication and Evidence: A tenuous relationship p. 80). One of the first things he said, according to my notes, is that gambits such as cherry picking, p-hacking, hunting for significance, selective reporting, and other QRPs, had been taught as acceptable become standard practice in psychology, without any special need to adjust p-values or alert the reader to their spuriousness [i]. (He will correct me if I’m wrong[2].) It shocked me to hear it, even though it shouldn’t have, given what I’ve learned about statistical practice in social science. It was the Report on Stapel that really pulled back the curtain on this attitude toward QRPs in social psychology–as discussed in this blogpost 3 years ago. (If you haven’t read Section 5 of the report on flawed science, you should.) Many of us assumed that QRPs, even if still committed, were at least recognized to be bad statistical practices since the time of Morrison and Henkel’s (1970) Significance Test Controversy. A question now is this: have all the confessions of dirty laundry, the fraudbusting of prominent researchers, the pledges to straighten up and fly right, the years of replication research, done anything to remove the stains? I leave the question open for now. Here’s my “statistical dirty laundry” post from 2013: Continue reading →

Categories: junk science, reproducibility, spurious p values, Statistics | 4 Comments

Mayo & Parker “Using PhilStat to Make Progress in the Replication Crisis in Psych” SPSP Slides

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Mayo

Screen Shot 2016-06-19 at 12.53.32 PMHere are the slides from our talk at the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP) conference. I covered the first 27, Parker the rest. The abstract is here:

Categories: P-values, reforming the reformers, replication research, Statistics, StatSci meets PhilSci | Leave a comment

“Using PhilStat to Make Progress in the Replication Crisis in Psych” at Society for PhilSci in Practice (SPSP)

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Mayo

Screen Shot 2016-06-15 at 1.19.23 PMI’m giving a joint presentation with Caitlin Parker[1] on Friday (June 17) at the meeting of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP): “Using Philosophy of Statistics to Make Progress in the Replication Crisis in Psychology” (Rowan University, Glassboro, N.J.)[2] The Society grew out of a felt need to break out of the sterile straightjacket wherein philosophy of science occurs divorced from practice. The topic of the relevance of PhilSci and PhilStat to Sci has often come up on this blog, so people might be interested in the SPSP mission statement below our abstract.

Using Philosophy of Statistics to Make Progress in the Replication Crisis in Psychology

Deborah Mayo Virginia Tech, Department of Philosophy United States
Caitlin Parker Virginia Tech, Department of Philosophy United States

Continue reading →

Categories: Announcement, replication research, reproducibility | 8 Comments

“So you banned p-values, how’s that working out for you?” D. Lakens exposes the consequences of a puzzling “ban” on statistical inference

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Mayo
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I came across an excellent post on a blog kept by Daniel Lakens: “So you banned p-values, how’s that working out for you?” He refers to the journal that recently banned significance tests, confidence intervals, and a vague assortment of other statistical methods, on the grounds that all such statistical inference tools are “invalid” since they don’t provide posterior probabilities of some sort (see my post). The editors’ charge of “invalidity” could only hold water if these error statistical methods purport to provide posteriors based on priors, which is false. The entire methodology is based on methods in which probabilities arise to qualify the method’s capabilities to detect and avoid erroneous interpretations of data [0]. The logic is of the falsification variety found throughout science. Lakens, an experimental psychologist, does a great job delineating some of the untoward consequences of their inferential ban. I insert some remarks in black. Continue reading →

Categories: frequentist/Bayesian, Honorary Mention, P-values, reforming the reformers, science communication, Statistics | 45 Comments

Winner of May 2016 Palindrome Contest: Curtis Williams

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Mayo
Curtis_1

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Winner of the May 2016 Palindrome contest

Curtis Williams: Inventor, entrepreneur, and professional actor

The winning palindrome (a dialog): 

 

“Disable preplan?… I, Mon Ami?”

“Ask!”

“Calm…Sit, fella.”

“No! I tag. I vandalized Dezi, lad.”

“Navigational leftism lacks aim…a nominal perp: Elba’s id.”

The requirement: A palindrome using “navigate” or “navigation” (and Elba, of course).

Book choice: Error and Inference (D. Mayo & A. Spanos, Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Curtis Cartoon Caption 1

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Bio: Curtis Mark Williams is the co-founder of WavHello and the inventor of Bellybuds, who also counts himself as an occasional professional actor who has performed on Broadway [1] and in several television shows and films. 
He currently resides in Los Angeles with his lovely wife, two daughters, his dog, Newton, and his framed New Yorker Caption Contest winning cartoon. [He has been a finalist twice and the one he won is contest #329, by Joe Dator (inspired by his theatrical background. :)] Continue reading →

Categories: Palindrome | Leave a comment

“A sense of security regarding the future of statistical science…” Anon review of Error and Inference

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Mayo
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Aris Spanos, my colleague (in economics) and co-author, came across this anonymous review of our Error and Inference (2010) [E & I]. Interestingly, the reviewer remarks that “The book gives a sense of security regarding the future of statistical science and its importance in many walks of life.” We’re not sure what the reviewer means–but it’s appreciated regardless. This post was from yesterday’s 3-year memory lane and was first posted here.

2010 American Statistical Association and the American Society for Quality

TECHNOMETRICS, AUGUST 2010, VOL. 52, NO. 3, Book Reviews, 52:3, pp. 362-370.

Error and Inference: Recent Exchanges on Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science, edited by Deborah G. MAYO and Aris SPANOS, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-88008-4, xvii+419 pp., $60.00.

This edited volume contemplates the interests of both scientists and philosophers regarding gathering reliable information about the problem/question at hand in the presence of error, uncertainty, and with limited data information.

The volume makes a significant contribution in bridging the gap between scientific practice and the philosophy of science. The main contribution of this volume pertains to issues of error and inference, and showcases intriguing discussions on statistical testing and providing alternative strategy to Bayesian inference. In words, it provides cumulative information towards the philosophical and methodological issues of scientific inquiry at large.

The target audience of this volume is quite general and open to a broad readership. With some reasonable knowledge of probability theory and statistical science, one can get the maximum benefit from most of the chapters of the volume. The volume contains original and fascinating articles by eminent scholars (nine, including the editors) who range from names in statistical science to philosophy, including D. R. Cox, a name well known to statisticians. Continue reading →

Categories: 3-year memory lane, Review of Error and Inference, Statistics | 3 Comments

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