Brian Haig, Professor Emeritus
Department of Psychology
University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand
The American Statistical Association’s (ASA) recent effort to advise the statistical and scientific communities on how they should think about statistics in research is ambitious in scope. It is concerned with an initial attempt to depict what empirical research might look like in “a world beyond p<0.05” (The American Statistician, 2019, 73, S1,1-401). Quite surprisingly, the main recommendation of the lead editorial article in the Special Issue of The American Statistician devoted to this topic (Wasserstein, Schirm, & Lazar, 2019; hereafter, ASA II) is that “it is time to stop using the term ‘statistically significant’ entirely”. (p.2) ASA II acknowledges the controversial nature of this directive and anticipates that it will be subject to critical examination. Indeed, in a recent post, Deborah Mayo began her evaluation of ASA II by making constructive amendments to three recommendations that appear early in the document (‘Error Statistics Philosophy’, June 17, 2019). These amendments have received numerous endorsements, and I record mine here. In this short commentary, I briefly state a number of general reservations that I have about ASA II. Continue reading
