Liberty Vittert, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in Arts & Sciences
“Handy bit of research finds sexuality can be determined by the lengths of people’s fingers” was one recent headline based on a peer-reviewed study by well-respected researchers at the University of Essex published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the leading scholarly publication in the area of human sexuality.
And, to my stats-savvy eye, it is a bunch of hogwash.
Just when it seems that news consumers may be wising up – remembering to ask if science is “peer-reviewed,” the sample size is big enough or who funded the work – along comes a suckerpunch of a story. In this instance, the fast one comes in the form of confidence intervals, a statistical topic that no lay person should really ever have to wade through to understand a news article.
Read the full piece in The Conversation.
Comments and respectful dialogue are encouraged, but content will be moderated. Please, no personal attacks, obscenity or profanity, selling of commercial products, or endorsements of political candidates or positions. We reserve the right to remove any inappropriate comments. We also cannot address individual medical concerns or provide medical advice in this forum.