Pulling No Punches on the Need to Fix Science

A tweet by William Lee (@wildscrutineer) hit the mark: “No punches being pulled at #METRICSconf15: Need to fix science before the ppl who pay for it reali[z]e what bad deal[s] they get.” Hosted by the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University (METRICS),...

Racism, Redcards, and Rabbit Holes

Statisticians have warned for a long time that inexpert modeling can produce distorted statistical results. The replication crisis in science has often been attributed to poor statistical practice with part of the cure being to employ more statisticians. But would...

Epistemically Challenged: Natalie Chavez

Epistemically Challenged is an opinion series about how each one of us explores knowledge. In this installment, Natalie Chavez, a Ph.D. candidate in Biology at Stanford talks about expectations while growing up. Growing up, it was always expected that we were going to...

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...

Anatomy of a Statistical Meltdown

“Plastics Chemical Tied to Aggression in Young Girls,” said the headline on ABC News. “The research showed that hyperactive, anxious, aggressive and depressed behavior was more common in 3-year-old girls who were exposed in the womb to bisphenol-A than in boys of the...