1 in 4 Statisticians Asked to Commit Scientific Fraud?

1 in 4 Statisticians Asked to Commit Scientific Fraud

As the saying goes, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." We know that's true because statisticians themselves just said so.

A stunning report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concludes that researchers often ask statisticians to make "inappropriate requests." And by "inappropriate," the authors aren't referring to accidental requests for incorrect statistical analyses; instead, they're referring to requests for unscrupulous data manipulation or even fraud.

The authors surveyed 522 consulting biostatisticians and received sufficient responses from 390. Then, they constructed a table (shown below) that ranks requests by level of inappropriateness. For instance, at the very top is "falsify the statistical significance to support a desired result," which is outright fraud. At the bottom is "do not show plot because it did not show as strong an effect as you had hoped," which is only slightly naughty.

re: credit, seems like an AI-NLP summary:

This article has been republished from materials provided by the American Council on Science and Health. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Reference
Min Qi Wang, Alice F. Yan, Ralph V. Katz. "Researcher Requests for Inappropriate Analysis and Reporting: A U.S. Survey of Consulting Biostatisticians." Ann Intern Med 169(8): 554-558. Published: 16-Oct-2018. DOI: 10.7326/M18-1230.