Re:Odds Are, It's Wrong
by PhysicsAndYou on Tuesday March 30, 2010 @03:44PM
(#1229964)
That isn't the only problem addressed.
Misinterpretation and/or abuse of statistics is prevalent in scientific literature more often then you would think. Repeatability, consensus and peer review are good ways of minimizing this problem but it is still true that any random paper you open on say arXiv or even a standard journal is probably going to contain some form of abuse intentional or not.
Is this a serious problem? Mostly in those fields plagued by low confidence results and heavy approximations being made but it exists in all levels.
The article is rather alarmist though for my taste.
Re:Odds Are, It's Wrong
by aphyr on Tuesday March 30, 2010 @03:59PM
(#1229993)
Oh, yeah, the 5% thing is only a small part of the article. I've just read four or five "OMG 80% of science is wrong!" articles this month, and think it's kinda tired.
Misinterpretation and/or abuse of statistics is prevalent in scientific literature more often then you would think. Repeatability, consensus and peer review are good ways of minimizing this problem but it is still true that any random paper you open on say arXiv or even a standard journal is probably going to contain some form of abuse intentional or not.
Is this a serious problem? Mostly in those fields plagued by low confidence results and heavy approximations being made but it exists in all levels.
The article is rather alarmist though for my taste.