Introduction to Biostatistics at William and Mary

The first results from a major project to measure the reliability of cancer research have highlighted a big problem: Labs trying to repeat published experiments often can't.

That's not to say that the original studies are wrong. But the results of a review published Thursday, in the open-access journal eLife, are a sobering reminder that science often fails at one of its most basic requirements — an experiment in one lab ought to be reproducible in another one.

The ability of statistics to accurately represent the world is declining. In its wake, a new age of big data controlled by private companies is taking over – and putting democracy in peril

by William Davies

For most of the history of organized scientific research, the limitations of technology made print journals the chief means of disseminating scientific results. But some #ASAPbio advocates argue that since the rise of the Internet, biologists have been abdicating their duty to the public — which pays for most academic research — by not sharing results as quickly and openly as possible.

News article

One of the greatest minds in 20th Century statistics was not a scholar. He brewed beer.

Guinness brewer William S. Gosset’s work is responsible for inspiring the concept of statistical significance, industrial quality control, efficient design of experiments and, not least of all, consistently great tasting beer.

Blog post

Ultimately, the best way to live a life by science is to ignore most of what you read in science news and instead take a little time to grasp high quality resources...In the end, it is up to you to be skeptical when hearing new claims. A simple rule of thumb is to never change your behavior because of a single study in the news.

Blog post

Misuse of the P value — a common test for judging the strength of scientific evidence — is contributing to the number of research findings that cannot be reproduced, the American Statistical Association (ASA) warns... The group has taken the unusual step of issuing principles to guide use of the P value, which it says cannot determine whether a hypothesis is true or whether results are important.

Nature News

ASA News

ASA Statement on P-values

...Toxoplasma infection alters rat behavior with surgical precision, making them lose their fear of (and even become sexually aroused by!) the smell of cats by hijacking neurochemical pathways in the rat's brain.

News article

The Zika virus damages many fetuses carried by infected and symptomatic mothers, regardless of when in pregnancy the infection occurs, according to a small but frightening study released on Friday by Brazilian and American researchers.

News article

Research article  Research article

This is a great case-study on experimental design and bias.

News  Original paper

A few years back, a famous psychologist published a series of studies that found people could predict the future — not all the time, but more often than if they were guessing by chance alone.

The paper left psychologists with two options.

"Either we have to conclude that ESP is true," says Brian Nosek, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, "or we have to change our beliefs about the right ways to do science."

Nosek is going with Option B — and not just for psychology experiments. He thinks there's something wrong with the way we're doing science. And he launched a massive project to try to fix it.

Podcast  Paper  OSC

Gravitational signature hints at massive object that orbits the Sun every 20,000 years.

Alexandra Witze

News  Article  /r/science

Medical science is being undermined because researchers are changing the things they’re measuring after looking at the data, a campaign group has warned.

Tom Chivers

Article  COMPare