Scientific Method: Statistical Errors

Scientific Method: Statistical Errors

Nuzzo, Regina
Nature News 506, no. 7487 (2014): 150
https://doi.org/10.1038/506150a

“For a brief moment in 2010, Matt Motyl was on the brink of scientific glory: he had discovered that extremists quite literally see the world in black and white.

The results were “plain as day”, recalls Motyl, a psychology PhD student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Data from a study of nearly 2,000 people seemed to show that political moderates saw shades of grey more accurately than did either left-wing or rightwing extremists. “The hypothesis was sexy,” he says, “and the data provided clear support.” The P value, a common index for the strength of evidence, was 0.01 — usually interpreted as ‘very significant’. Publication in a high-impact journal seemed within Motyl’s grasp.

But then reality intervened....
”

— Regina Nuzzo