Brian Haig

B. Haig on questionable editorial directives from Psychological Science (Guest Post)

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Mayo

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Brian Haig, Professor Emeritus
Department of Psychology
University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand

 

What do editors of psychology journals think about tests of statistical significance? Questionable editorial directives from Psychological Science

Deborah Mayo’s (2021) recent editorial in Conservation Biology addresses the important issue of how journal editors should deal with strong disagreements about tests of statistical significance (ToSS). Her commentary speaks to applied fields, such as conservation science, but it is relevant to basic research, as well as other sciences, such as psychology. In this short guest commentary, I briefly remark on the role played by the prominent journal, Psychological Science (PS), regarding whether or not researchers should employ ToSS. PS is the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science, and two of its editors-in-chief have offered explicit, but questionable, advice on this matter. Continue reading →

Categories: ASA Task Force on Significance and Replicability, Brian Haig, editors, significance tests | Tags: | 2 Comments

Final part of B. Haig’s ‘What can psych stat reformers learn from the error-stat perspective?’ (Bayesian stats)

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Mayo

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Here’s the final part of Brian Haig’s recent paper ‘What can psychology’s statistics reformers learn from the error-statistical perspective?’ in Methods in Psychology 2 (Nov. 2020). The full article, which is open access, is here. I will make some remarks in the comments.

5. The error-statistical perspective and the nature of science

Haig

As noted at the outset, the error-statistical perspective has made significant contributions to our philosophical understanding of the nature of science. These are achieved, in good part, by employing insights about the nature and place of statistical inference in experimental science. The achievements include deliberations on important philosophical topics, such as the demarcation of science from non-science, the underdetermination of theories by evidence, the nature of scientific progress, and the perplexities of inductive inference. In this article, I restrict my attention to two such topics: The process of falsification and the structure of modeling.

5.1. Falsificationism Continue reading →

Categories: Brian Haig, SIST

Part 2 of B. Haig’s ‘What can psych stat reformers learn from the error-stat perspective?’ (Bayesian stats)

Posted on May 6, 2020 by Mayo

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Here’s a picture of ripping open the first box of (rush) copies of Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars*, and here’s a continuation of Brian Haig’s recent paper ‘What can psychology’s statistics reformers learn from the error-statistical perspective?’ in Methods in Psychology 2 (Nov. 2020). Haig contrasts error statistics, the “new statistics”, and Bayesian statistics from the perspective of the statistics wars in psychology. The full article, which is open access, is here. I will make several points in the comments.

Haig

4. Bayesian statistics

Despite its early presence, and prominence, in the history of statistics, the Bayesian outlook has taken an age to assert itself in psychology. However, a cadre of methodologists has recently advocated the use of Bayesian statistical methods as a superior alternative to the messy frequentist practice that dominates psychology’s research landscape (e.g., Dienes, 2011; Kruschke and Liddell, 2018; Wagenmakers, 2007). These Bayesians criticize NHST, often advocate the use of Bayes factors for hypothesis testing, and rehearse a number of other well-known Bayesian objections to frequentist statistical practice. Continue reading →

Categories: Brian Haig, SIST

‘What can psychology’s statistics reformers learn from the error-statistical perspective?’

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Mayo

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This is the title of Brian Haig’s recent paper in Methods in Psychology 2 (Nov. 2020). Haig is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Canterbury. Here he provides both a thorough and insightful review of my book Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars (CUP, 2018) as well as an excellent overview of the high points of today’s statistics wars and the replication crisis, especially from the perspective of psychology. I’ll excerpt from his article in a couple of posts. The full article, which is open access, is here. 

Abstract: In this article, I critically evaluate two major contemporary proposals for reforming statistical thinking in psychology: The recommendation that psychology should employ the “new statistics” in its research practice, and the alternative proposal that it should embrace Bayesian statistics. I do this from the vantage point of the modern error-statistical perspective, which emphasizes the importance of the severe testing of knowledge claims. I also show how this error-statistical perspective improves our understanding of the nature of science by adopting a workable process of falsification and by structuring inquiry in terms of a hierarchy of models. Before concluding, I briefly discuss the importance of the philosophy of statistics for improving our understanding of statistical thinking.

Brian Haig

Keywords: The error-statistical perspective, The new statistics, Bayesian statistics, Falsificationism, Hierarchy of models, Philosophy of statistics Continue reading →

Categories: Brian Haig, Statistical Inference as Severe Testing–Review

B. Haig: The ASA’s 2019 update on P-values and significance (ASA II)(Guest Post)

Posted on July 12, 2019 by Mayo

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(note)) is that “it is time to stop using the term ‘statistically significant’ entirely”. (p.2) ASA II(note) 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(note) 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(note). Continue reading →

Categories: ASA Guide to P-values, Brian Haig | Tags:

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