Confound those Damned Confounders

Confound Those Speculative Statistics

Speculative statistics are model-based statistics. These include deaths attributable to being in a group (deaths linked to a distant cause). Such deaths are those due to primary smoke, second-hand smoke, obesity and radon. This paper reviews the epidemiological model used and introduces a graphical technique to present three big ideas: that a confounder can influence (1) an association in an ob...

Lies, damned lies and……….

The well-known quotation “There are lies, damned lies and statistics” suggests that statistics doesn’t have the greatest of reputations. Why is this? Certainly, statistics can be used to mislead, but logically “lies, damned lies and statistics” reflects high levels of statistical misunderstanding rather than indicating that statistics are inherently ‘bad’. In Bad Science, Ben Goldacre highlight...

Publish or be damned.

Scoop and be damned

Both journals and journalism are well served by the embargo system. Newspaper offices receive advance copies of major journals, and/or press releases highlighting key papers, embargoed so that their contents cannot be disclosed before publication day. Journalists then have time to write stories to appear simultaneously. No-one has an unfair advantage. And journals gain more publicity than they ...

Damned Drugs (Part I)

enc 11 who have brewed strange brews, either to deal death swift and sudden, or to SoiHe ^riSS victim more slowly and even more insidiously than the silent march of eU disease. Eratk01^? Were well known among the ancients, and centuries before the Christian ^ ? Sanskrit writings show that the Hindoos were familiar with animal, vegetable Heces?lnera^ poisons as well as with their antidotes. Thus...