The p value wars (again)

Excerpt

More than 800 researchers, many of them prominent biostatisticians, called to “raise up against the p-value.” [1] This recent battle cry was just the climax of a growing insurrection, which prominently surfaced in 2018 when another group of biostatisticians demanded that we should “redefine statistical significance,” [2] and proposed to change the default p value threshold for statistical significance from 0.05 to 0.005 for claims of new discoveries. For many researchers and experts, this demand did not go far enough; in a follow-up statement, they demanded to “remove rather than redefine statistical significance.” [3] This apparent upheaval even made it into the lay press. The Financial Times, for example, analyzed that “Scientists strike back against statistical tyranny.” [4] What’s all the fuzz about? …