![](\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/neuroskeptic-1.gif\")
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In the early days of computing, I lived on the leading edge of hardware and software. The advances were just such exciting stuff. But over the ensuing decades, that has reversed. I actively ride the trailing edge – still use Windows XP and early Linux. I groan when I am forced to update something. So I was slow to twitter<\/em>, and rarely tweet<\/em>, requiring help from my daughter to get the blog to auto·tweet<\/em> [and none of those italicized words have yet entered my everyday vocabulary]. But I have to admit that it’s a pretty clever idea. I wouldn’t have found that last UK Parliamentary hearing without twitter<\/em>. And then there’s stuff like the tweet<\/em> from Neuroskeptic above.<\/p>\n But then along came retirement with a reason to learn about the modern clinical trials and the softer side of statistics was all around me [speaking of trailing edges]. So I found myself grappling with small differences where p-values<\/em> and effect sizes<\/em> were of primary importance and regressions didn’t refer to neurotic processes. And there was something kind of new for me – misusing math on purpose to make tons of money – as in to sell expensive pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n One of the obvious ways to clean up the horrible mathemangled<\/em> clinical trials is to insist that the raw subject level data be available – data transparency. That’s the part Ben Goldacre, the Cochrane Collaboration, and AllTrials petition are all about. The PHARMA offering is to have pseudo-impartial boards decide if the proposal of some research justifies access. I see that as smoke and mirrors. We don’t want to see their numbers to do further research. We want to check their work to see if they’re cheating. So it’s not yet resolved.<\/p>\n Neuroskeptic and COGSCI are on another tack altogether. It has to do with pre·<\/em>registration – declaring how the study will be done and analyzed up front in order to block the kind of data-play after the fact that haunts the clinical trial literature. In this tweet<\/em>, Neuroskeptic is talking about a work in progress to respond to COGSCI [Sebastiaan Mathôt], but I’m heavily recommending reading the prequels The black swan<\/a> and The pros and cons of pre·<\/em>registration in fundamental research<\/a> by Mathôt and Interview: Raising the Scientific Standard<\/a> by Neuroskeptic. Beyond the issue of tightening scientific standards by pre·<\/em>registration, these articles give insights into the meanings of our statistical analyses that I found both helpful and understandable [emphasis on understandable].<\/p>\n The best part of all of this is that the problem is on the table. They’re bickering about how to do something rather than whether there’s a something that needs doing, which is where we’ve been stuck for a long time. Kudos to the muckrakers who stuck with watch·<\/em>dogging and debunking the dodgy studies we’ve been fed for years. Without them, this debate wouldn’t even be happening. <\/p>\n In the early days of computing, I lived on the leading edge of hardware and software. The advances were just such exciting stuff. But over the ensuing decades, that has reversed. I actively ride the trailing edge – still use Windows XP and early Linux. I groan when I am forced to update something. So […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35640"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35666,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35640\/revisions\/35666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/friden.gif\")
While fundamental neuroscience is not my area, the issues raised in this post are pertinent to a important debate on the table. In my college days, I was a math type, but statistics weren’t part of that. It was that sure thing math like calculus and topology. The statistics came later in immunology, but I wasn’t using them to see significance. It was molecular biology and the significance was visible from 100 yards – not part of the question. It was using alalysis of variance to factor out the contributions and interactions of various parameters – plenty enough to keep a Friden calculator sounding like an assault rifle or filling boxes of punch cards. ![](\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/punch-card.gif\")
My brother-in-law, the experimental psychologist across town, was doing that other kind of statistics. It seemed mighty soft to me, and I tended to be skeptical of differences I couldn’t see with my proverbial naked eye.<\/p>\nYou can put a lot into a tweet<\/em>… <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"