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Soon after the Wasserstein et al (2019) “don’t say significance” editorial, John Ioannidis invited Andrew Gelman and I to write editorials from our different perspectives on an associated editorial that Nature invited. It was written by Amrhein, Greenland and McShane (AGM, 2019). Prior to the publication of AGM 2019, people were given the opportunity to add their names to the Nature article.
A campaign followed that aimed at the collection of signatures in what was called a ‘petition’ on the widely popular blogsite of Andrew Gelman. Ultimately, 854 scientists signed the petition and the list of their names was published along with commentary. (Hardwicke and Ioannidis, 2019, p. 2)
Tom Hardwicke and John Ioannidis (2019) took advantage of the opportunity “to perform a survey of the signatories to understand how and why they signed the endorsement” (ibid.). This post, reblogged from September 25 2019, includes all 3 articles: the survey by Hardwicke and Ioannidis, and the editorials by Gelman and I. They appeared in the European Journal of Clinical Investigations (2019). I’m still interested in reader responses (in the comments) to the question I pose.
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The October 2019 issue of the European Journal of Clinical Investigations came out today. It includes the PERSPECTIVE article by Tom Hardwicke and John Ioannidis, an invited editorial by Gelman and one by me:
Petitions in scientific argumentation: Dissecting the request to retire statistical significance, by Tom Hardwicke and John Ioannidis
When we make recommendations for scientific practice, we are (at best) acting as social scientists, by Andrew Gelman
P-value thresholds: Forfeit at your peril, by Deborah Mayo
I blogged excerpts from my preprint, and some related posts, here.
All agree to the disagreement on the statistical and metastatistical issues:
- “Very different views have been expressed, and consensus is distinctly lacking among experts (eg see 21 heterogeneous commentaries accompanying the American Statistical Association’s 2016 Statement on P‐Values [ASAI])” Hardwicke and Ioannidis.
- “The foundations and the practice of statistics are in turmoil, with corresponding threads of argument in biology, economics, political science, psychology, public health, and other fields that rely on quantitative research in the presence of variation and uncertainty. Lots of people (myself included) have strong opinions on what should not be done, without always being clear on the best remedy” Gelman.
- “The 43 papers in the special issue ‘Moving to a world beyond ‘p < 0.05’’ offer a cacophony of competing reforms” Mayo.
Despite the admitted disparate views, ASA representatives come out, in 2019, forcefully on the side of: Don’t use P-value thresholds (“at all”) in interpreting data, and Never describe results as attaining “statistical significance at level p”. Should the ASA, as an umbrella group, be striving to provide a relatively neutral forum for open, pressure-free, discussion of different methods–their pros and cons? This is a leading question, true. As an outsider, I’m interested to know what both insiders and outsiders think.[i]
- [i] It’s hard to imagine the American Philosophical Association coming out with a recommendation against one way of doing philosophy, but of course the situation with statistics is very different. (I do recall a push for “pluralism” in philosophy, which has taken on many meanings, and which I’m not up on.)
Links to ASA I and IInote:
Wasserstein, and N. Lazar. 2016 ASA Statement on P-Values and Statistical Significance (ASA I).
Wasserstein, R., Schirm A. and N. Lazar. “Moving to a world beyond ‘p< 0.05‘” (ASA II)note
Error Statistics Philosophy 