Seminar: Applied Biostatistics Series

Speaker:
Ronald L. Wasserstein, PhD, executive director, American Statistical Association

Abstract:
For nearly a hundred years, the concept of “statistical significance” has been fundamental to statistics and to science. And for nearly that long, it has been controversial and misused as well. In a completely non-technical (and generally humorous) way, ASA executive director Ron Wasserstein will explain this controversy, and say why he and others have called for an end to the use of statistical significance as means of determining the worth of scientific results. He will talk about why this change is so hard for the scientific community to make, but why it is good for science and for statistics, and will point to alternate approaches.