Design for statistical understanding

Design for statistical understanding What happens when a textbook approach to learning doesn’t work with scientists? We brought a top medical journal and a leading data visualization company together to try to explain a key statistical concept and solve the...

The mismeasure of scientific significance

M arch brings St. Patrick’s Day, the true significance of which has been lost in the froth of green beer and blarney. But without Patrick bringing Christianity to Ireland, Ireland could not have returned it through a rich Insular culture—the written word and the...

How Statistics Can Solve the BPA Controversy

Editor’s note: The controversy over whether bisphenol A, a component of plastics and can linings, is dangerous to humans is now in its 17th year. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on research by the US and other governments around the world—with intense...

Online Dating and the Statistical Dark Arts

One of the darkest statistical arts lies in choosing the model to use when analyzing your experimental data. A statistical model both represents your understanding of the experiment and enables you to test the strength of evidence supporting your conclusions. You can...

Why We Need a Statistical Revolution

My father told me the most important thing about solving a problem is to formulate it accurately, and one would think that, as statisticians, most of us would agree with that advice. Suppose we were to build a spaceship that can fly to Mars and return safely to Earth....