My reaction was similar to Christopher's.
Paul Bernhardt Dept of Psychology Frostburg State University pcbernhardt _at_ frostburg _dot_ edu On Mar 21, 2010, at 12:31 PM, Christopher D. Green wrote: > > > [email protected] wrote: >> >> Alerted by a colleague, I recommend an instructive if >> depressing essay on the problematic use of statistics in science. >> >> http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/57091/title/Odds_ar >> e,_its_w or http://tinyurl.com/yh7sk7r >> >> > > Yikes. What a simultaneously bizarre and ordinary column. There is little > here that hasn't been written about and widely known since the 1960s. Except > that the author sensationally attributes the problem to "statistics"rather > than specifically to the null hypothesis significance test (NHST). The fact > that he then advocates Bayesian statistic (which have also been widely > written about, though not much used in psychology, since the 1960s) makes the > point as effectively as I could. > > Correct probabilistic reasoning can be difficult, to be sure (as Kahneman & > Teversky; Gigerenzer, et al.; etc. have long shown us). But many kinds of > mathematical and scientific reasoning are difficult. That's why we have > special institutions with highly-paid instructors to teach them. That > doesn't make statistics a "mutant form of math" (an accusation that sounds > more like it comes form the first half of the 19th century, than form the > start of the 21st). The rise of probabilistic reasoning was probably the > greatest epistemological advance in history since the invention of calculus. > Anyone who thinks otherwise should try doing, say, evolutionary theory or > quantum mechanics without it. (Not to mention pretty well all of social and > behavioral science, of course.) > > Chris > -- > Christopher D. Green > Department of Psychology > York University > Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 > Canada > > 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 > [email protected] > http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ > ========================== > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=1427 > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-1427-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1433 or send a blank email to leave-1433-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
