Show Notes
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#statisticalsignificanceversuspracticalsignificance #effectsizeandestimationculture #pvaluesandstandarderror #WilliamGossetandFisherianstatistics #nullhypothesissignificancetesting #TheCultofStatisticalSignificance
The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives is a nonfiction critique of modern statistical practice written by Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey. The book belongs to economics and the philosophy of science, but its argument reaches into medicine, public policy, psychology, and other empirical fields that rely heavily on hypothesis testing. Its central purpose is to challenge the habit of treating statistical significance as if it were the same thing as substantive importance. The authors argue that researchers often focus on whether an effect exists at all, while neglecting how large, consequential, or practically meaningful that effect is. By doing so, they believe science and policy are distorted by an overreliance on p values, standard errors, and mechanical testing routines. The book also revisits the history of statistics, especially the roles of William Gosset and R. A. Fisher, to show how the dominance of significance testing became entrenched.