Median Watch

Eyes on statistics

A year without p-values

One year ago after another stupid fight with a journal about p-values, I made a pledge to go without them for a year. Here’s how it went. But first, why? I am aware of the arguments for and against p-values. I have used p-values for a long while and they can be a useful statistic. The reason I ditched them is because almost nobody in health and medical research interprets them correctly, wrongly thinking they reveal the probability that the null hypothesis is true (other misinterpretations are available).

Posted by Adrian Barnett Friday, September 10, 2021

Finding racist users in an online football game

In 1998, the French men’s team won the football World Cup for the first time in their history. For most of the country, even non-football fans, it was a joyous moment and the trigger for a massive national party, especially as the tournament was in France with the final in Paris. At least one Frenchman did not join the party: the rancorous politician Jean Marie Le Pen, who complained that the team was not “French enough”, a cowardly reference to the number of black players in the team.

Posted by Adrian Barnett Friday, June 11, 2021

An apology to the public

Sorry state. A few years ago I thought about writing an article that apologised to the public about the poor state of health and medical research. Their tax pays for this research and they give their time and data, and yet far too often the final results are totally unreliable. In the end I bottled it; too worried about the potential harm to my career. But today I’ve read this important paper from a group of statistical colleagues and it’s given me the nerve to apologise.

Posted by Adrian Barnett Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Most citations are rubbish

Blog pause It’s been a long while between blogs. I won’t bore you with how busy I’ve been, but one thing that’s kept me away from the fun of writing blogs is the “fun” of writing grants. Beans To get more research funding we rightly have to explain the impact of our past funding. It’s possible to get examples of impact by seeing how other researchers have cited your work.

Posted by Adrian Barnett Saturday, March 6, 2021

I humbly present the novel c-index

Show me the shortcut Scientists are busy people. Busy people love a short-cut because it gives them more time to be busy. The p-value is a well-used scientific short-cut. It can decide for us whether something is important or not, and it’s based on an equation so it must be right. Another heaven-sent shortcut is the h-index which allows us to decide the careers of researchers based on just one number (also made by an equation).

Posted by Adrian Barnett Monday, November 23, 2020