Many Neuroscience Studies May Be Based on Bad Statistics

WIRED: April 15, 2013

The fields of psychology and cognitive neuroscience have had some rough sledding in recent years. The bumps have come from high-profile fraudsters, concerns about  findings that can’t be replicated, and criticism from within the scientific ranks about shoddy statistics. A new study adds to these woes, suggesting that a wide range of neuroscience studies lack the statistical power to back up their findings.

This problem isn’t just academic. The authors argue that there are real-world consequences, from wasting the lives of lab animals and squandering public funding on unreliable studies, to potentially stopping clinical trials with human patients prematurely (or not stopping them soon enough). Read more