5 September, 2018 (w/updates) RSS 2018 – Significance Tests: Rethinking the Controversy

Speakers:
Sir David Cox, Nuffield College, Oxford
Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech
Richard Morey, Cardiff University
Aris Spanos, Virginia Tech

Intermingled in today’s statistical controversies are some long-standing, but unresolved, disagreements on the nature and principles of statistical methods and the roles for probability in statistical inference and modelling. In reaction to the so-called “replication crisis” in the sciences, some reformers suggest significance tests as a major culprit. To understand the ramifications of the proposed reforms, there is a pressing need for a deeper understanding of the source of the problems in the sciences and a balanced critique of the alternative methods being proposed to supplant significance tests. In this session speakers offer perspectives on significance tests from statistical science, econometrics, experimental psychology and philosophy of science. There will be also be panel discussion.

5 Sept. 2018 (taken by A.Spanos)

Sept 5, 2020 update: Little did we know that the P-value wars were soon to take a severe turn for the worse, with continued casualties:

Cox’s paper (based on his RSS talk): cox378-1Download

Some relevant papers and blogs of mine after the Wasserstein et al (2019) editorial.

• June 17, 2019: “The 2019 ASA Guide to P-values and Statistical Significance: Don’t Say What You Don’t Mean” (Some Recommendations)(ii)
• July 19, 2019: The NEJM Issues New Guidelines on Statistical Reporting: Is the ASA P-Value Project Backfiring? (i)
• September 19, 2019: (Excerpts from) ‘P-Value Thresholds: Forfeit at Your Peril’ (free access). The article by Hardwicke and Ioannidis (2019), and the editorials by Gelman and by me are linked on this post.
• November 4, 2019:On some Self-defeating aspects of the ASA’s 2019 recommendations of statistical significance tests
• November 14, 2019: The ASA’s P-value Project: Why it’s Doing More Harm than Good (cont from 11/4/19)
• November 30, 2019: P-Value Statements and Their Unintended(?) Consequences: The June 2019 ASA President’s Corner (b)
• Mayo, D. G. (2020). “P-Values on Trial: Selective Reporting of (Best Practice Guides Against) Selective Reporting” Harvard Data Science Review 2.1.
• August 4, 2020: 2020 JSM panel: P-values and “Statistical Significance”: Deconstructing the Arguments (with Karen Kafadar, Yaacov Ritov, Stan Young, and Larry Wasserman)