At 10:06 PM 10/16/00 +0000, Peter Lewycky wrote:
>It happens all the time in medicine. If I can show a p value 0.05 or
>less the researchers are delighted. Whenever I can't produce a p of 0.05
>or less they start looking for another statistician and will even
>withhold a paper from publication.
gee ... this is too bad ... someone has sold all these folks in medicine a
bill of goods ...
some possibilities are:
1. those in medicine are not really taking any statistics courses
2. those in medicine are not really reading statistical material very carefully
3. those in medicine have had a bad run of luck WHEN taking data analysis
courses
so, if someone in medicine looks at a paper with findings, and ... the p
value is ok ... REGARDLESS OF THE DESIGN of the study or the way the
investigation was carried out ... then the findings are meaningful ... but
if the p value is less than that magical cutoff ... even if the study seems
sound ... then it is not worthy of the time of day?
==============================================================
dennis roberts, penn state university
educational psychology, 8148632401
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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