Section on Statistical Education – JSM 2009（部分统计教育-地产2009）.pdf

Section on Statistical Education – JSM 2009 The Cult of Statistical Significance By Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey 1 Roosevelt University and University of Illinois-Chicago Abstract: We want to persuade you of one claim: that William Sealy Gosset (1876-1937)—aka Student of Students t-test—was right, and that his difficult friend, Ronald A. Fisher (1890-1962), though a genius, was wrong. Fit is not the same thing as importance. Statistical significance is not the same thing as scientific importance or economic sense. But the mistaken equation is made, we find, in 8 or 9 of every 10 articles appearing in the leading journals of science, economics to medicine. The history of this standard error of science involves varied characters and plot twists, but especially R. A. Fishers canonical translation of Students t. William S. Gosset aka “Student,” who was for most of his life Head Experimental Brewer at Guinness, took an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty. Against Gosset ’s wishes his friend Fisher erased the consciously economic element, Gossets real error.” We want to bring it back. For the past eighty-five years it appears that some of the sciences have made a mistake, by basing decisions on statistical “significance.” Though it looks at first like a matter of minor statistical detail, it is not. Statistics, magnitudes, coefficients are essential scientific tools. No one can credibly doubt that. And mathematical statistics is a glorious social and practical and aesthetic achievement. No one can credibly doubt that, either. Hum