Reddit reviews The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives (Economics, Cognition, And Society)

my whoel problem is that 95% certainty. I'm a statistician by trade, and even most statisticians get the idea of statistical certainty wrong.

There is NOOOO way you can claim "we are X% certain that humans are causing climate change". the data is way to variable and we don't know the cause and affect relationship.

many times, when you hear a scientist say I'm X% certain you should run. and run quickly.

Here's a good book on the subject

http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Statistical-Significance-Economics-Cognition/dp/0472050079/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422292380&sr=8-1&keywords=cult+of+statistical+significance

You could look at The Cult of Statistical Significance which discusses what the authors see as the widespread misuse of significance tests and lists large numbers of problematic articles, mostly in econometrics but also in other fields such as psychology. If you do read the book, prepare to be ranted at; the authors' style is also pretty repetitive, so prepare to be selective in yr reading.

Yeah, it's because they're all obsessed with statistical significance and nothing else. There's an interesting book about this actually: "The Cult of Statistical Significance": http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Statistical-Significance-Economics-Cognition/dp/0472050079

And it's sad, really. Because things are far more complex than that. It's entirely possible that a drug can increase the risk ON AVERAGE, even though it could increase the risk in SOME populations and decrease the risk in OTHER populations (although I presume that this doesn't happen very often for any specific [drug, risk] combo).

I'll second the recommendation of Mayo's book. It's really great. In a similar vein, you might like The Cult of Statistical Significance by Ziliak and McCloskey.

The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives tend to show that statisticians actually don't really understand their field either.

Edit: Why the downmod? If you've read the book at least explain and if you haven't... well on what ground do you downvote?