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The “Big Lie” is a degenerate research program
January 6, 2022 / Leave a comment
Scientists are concerned with the progress of research programs. A research program that doesn’t make progress in understanding the phenomena it studies wastes valuable professional time and resources. It also is a sink of resources that could be better spent improving the human condition. However, most research programs that don’t progress are unlikely to actively […]
Statistically “discernible” instead of “significant”?
March 21, 2019 / Leave a comment
Renaming "statistically significant" findings as "statistically discernible" shifts the frame from meaning to perception. It also suggests that effects that are statistically "indiscernible" may be so because they truly don't exist, because they are too small to be detected with the data at hand, or because there is such imprecision in our measurements to make almost any effect imperceptible. Continue reading →
How to justify your alpha: step by step
March 1, 2018 / 5 Comments on How to justify your alpha: step by step
Do you need alpha? | Study goals? | Minimum effect size of interest? | Justify your alpha | Justify your beta | How to control for multiple comparisons? | Examples I joined a panoply of scholars who argue that it is necessary to justify your alpha (that is, the acceptable long-run proportion of false positive […]
Community psychology: Lessons learned from Route 91
December 3, 2017 / Leave a comment
This post is long; the links below will take you to potential topics of interest. BEHIND THE SCENES: Call your IRB & delegate | Justify your statistical decisions ON THE GROUND: Promote your study | Involve the media | Lead with helpful resources | Listen to community reps | Give results back to community | […]
A template for reviewing papers
August 11, 2017 / Leave a comment
The current culture of science thrives on peer review – that is, the willingness of your colleagues to read through your work, critique it, and thereby improve it. Science magazine recently collected a slew of tips on how to review papers, which give people getting started in the process of peer reviewing some lovely overarching […]
Recent posts
- “Confabulating” instead of “hallucinating” in ChatGPT and generative AI errors?
- The “Big Lie” is a degenerate research program
- “Social spacing”, not “social distancing”: Deepening connections while staying safe
- Statistically “discernible” instead of “significant”?
- How to justify your alpha: step by step
