On 4 MFómh 2009, at 18:09, Paul Elias wrote:
>
> I wanted to share this:
>
> If you subject your data and analysis to torture and relentless
> pressure, it will confess anything to you or tell you essentially,
> what you want to hear.
I was an expert witness in a medico-legal case. The other side had a
statistician too. The legal teams were disgusted: our reports agreed
down to the last detail. We both explained that given the same data,
the calculations yielded the same results.
One barrister asked me "but can't you statisticians make the data fit
whatever story you want to?"
"I'm afraid you are confusing my profession with yours" I replied.
The whole aspect of the case centred around the data was dropped, as
there was essentially no disagreement between the expert witnesses for
each side.
So here's a challenge: I will send the results of a negative trial to
anyone who believes that they can make the trial positive by torturing
them. And if they can, I will concede that Paul's comment is more than
a widespread bias based on a deep rooted fear of mathematics instilled
by generations of incompetent primary school teachers.
Ronan Conroy
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