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The Cult of Statistical Significance

Date:
-
Location:
University of Kentucky, Young Library Auditorium
Speaker(s) / Presenter(s):
Stephen T. Ziliak, Roosevelt University

 

We want to persuade you of one claim: that William Sealy Gosset ( 1876- 1937 ) -aka "Student" of "Student's" t-test-was right, and that his difficult friend, Ronald A. Fisher ( 1890-1962) , though a genius, was wrong. Fit is not the same thing as importance. Statistical significance is not the same thing as scientific importance or economic sense. But the mistaken equation is made, we find, in 8 or 9 of 10 articles appearing in the leading journals of science, economics to medicine. The history of this "standard error" of science involves varied characters and plot twists, but especially R. A. Fisher's canonical translation of "Student's" t. W.S. Gosset, aka "Student," working as Head Experimental Brewer at Guinness, took an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty. Against Gosset's wishes his friend Fisher erased the consciously economic element, Gosset's "real error." We want to bring it back.

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