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skeptical_lurker comments on Open Thread, Apr. 27 - May 3, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 27 April 2015 12:18AM

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Comment author: skeptical_lurker 30 April 2015 09:32:13AM 0 points [-]

If a psych researcher finds "basic stats" confusing, he is not qualified to write a paper which looks at statistical interpretations of whatever results he got. He should either acquire some competency or stop pretending he understands what he is writing.

The problem is that psychology and statistics are different skills, and someone who is talented at one may not be talented at the other.

To give a crude example, 100 is guaranteed to be biggest number in the [1 .. 100] set of integers. If your set of integers is "from one to about a hundred, more or less", 100 is no longer guaranteed to be the biggest, but it's still not a bad estimate of the biggest number in that set.

I take your point, but you can no longer say that 100 is the biggest number with 95% confidence, and this is the problem.

Comment author: Lumifer 30 April 2015 03:04:35PM 1 point [-]

someone who is talented at one may not be talented at the other.

You don't need to be talented, you only need to be competent. If you can't pass even that low bar, maybe you shouldn't publish papers which use statistics.

you can no longer say that 100 is the biggest number with 95% confidence, and this is the problem.

I don't see any problem here.

First, 95% is an arbitrary number, it's pure convention that does not correspond to any joint in the underlying reality.

Second, the t-test does NOT mean what most people think it means. See e.g. this or this.

Third, and most important, your certainty level should be entirely determined by the data. If your data does not support 95% confidence, then it does not. Trying to pretend otherwise is fraud.

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