Random Ramblings of a Raconteur

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As Damian & Roberts point out a result can be both statistically significant and practically meaningless – something obviously not taught in any sociology department in the world.

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False positive results need not be the result of fraud or lack of due diligence, they may just be bad luck as Fowler & Montagnes demonstrate. They offer a couple of – non fail safe – recommendations on how to avoid such pitfalls.

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My first reaction to Berkowitz et al. was ‘So what’, as I tend to consider typical school math tuition between worthless and nonexistent and to assume all basic math is learnt at home or not at all. But it seems this intervention especially helps children of innumeric and math-anxious parents. If true this would make it an exceptionally valuable result. (more…)

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Male faculty for STEM subjects tend to reject studies that assert gender bias in their fields. So this is proof for their own gender bias and prejudiced rejection of female colleagues – at least according to Handley et al. Maybe so. But if (more…)

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In the current deluge of publications Kot asks a very relevant question: How much pure and utter nonsense is out there, that is not intentional and produced by humans?

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Some of the scientists involved in Boyajian et al. speculate that all the natural explanations examined so far come up short in one way or another and we ought to consider an extraterrestrial civilisation at work here. Maybe so. Let us wait and see and them come up with some evidence. What they published so far is entirely valid.

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Life has adapted to and survived in the real world and its wildly variable and changing climates, so it should be obvious, that (nearly) all its feedbacks have to be negative and its physiological changes limited. It seems this has been obvious to all but the adherents of the man-made global warming religion, (more…)

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I really want to know the Homo naledi fossils’ age now, but I’m totally at a loss to suggest a suitable dating method. We can be sure they are way out of the range for carbon. In the absence of dripstones and with neither heat nor light to reset radiometric clocks I have no idea what material to date.

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If you believe Kolbabová et al., the diurnal melatonin cycle of calves is upset by the magnetic field from 50 Hz power lines at least in winter. Is it?

Their n=80 and n=20/20 in Figs 1–3 violates common standards, as it does not count the number of subjects as usual but that of individual measurements. The total size (more…)

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What is science and is the way research is currently done, both in universities and the private sector, even able to produce science? Bohannon, the Open Science Collaboration, Le Noury et al., and Veresoglou all ask the question, an answer is not yet in sight.

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