Thinking Allowed

medical / technology / education / art / flub

Is the p-value pointless? | PLOS Biologue: For the first time in its 177-year history, the American Statistical Association

Is the p-value pointless? | PLOS Biologue: For the first time in its 177-year history, the American Statistical Association (ASA) has voiced its opinion and made specific recommendations for a statistical practice. The subject of their ire? The (arguably) most common statistical output, the p-value. The p-value has long been the primary metric for demonstrating that study results are “statistically significant,” usually by achieving the semi-arbitrary value of p<0.05. However, the ASA notes, the importance of the p-value has been greatly overstated and the scientific community has become over-reliant on this one – flawed – measure.   In the associated article, published in The American Statistician, Ronald Wasserstein and Nicole Lazar explain how the dependence on the p-value threatens the reproducibility and replicability of research. Importantly, the p-value does not prove that scientific conclusions are true and does not signify the importance of a result. As Wasserstein says in the ASA press release, “The p-value

Source: blogs.plos.org

p-value asa statistical wasserstein importance plos american scientific