Sunday, August 12, 2018

"Impossibly hungry judges"



"Some people dislike statistics. They are only interested in effects that are so large, you can see them by just plotting the data. This study might seem to be a convincing illustration of such an effect. My goal in this blog is to argue against this idea. You need statistics, maybe especially when effects are so large they jump out at you."


This is a great point - explain not just the effect, but the reason it would have a given effect size. 

Also, the proper title for this post would have been" Impossibly HANGRY Judges". Obvious oversight 

FB: A great essay on skeptically interpreting data, focusing on that finding that judges are much more harsh right before lunch 
"If hunger had an effect on our mental resources of this magnitude, our society would fall into minor chaos every day at 11:45...


There are simply no plausible psychological effects that are strong enough to cause the data pattern in the hungry judges study. Implausibility is not a reason to completely dismiss empirical findings, but impossibility is. It is up to authors to interpret the effect size in their study, and to show the mechanism through which an effect that is impossibly large, becomes plausible."

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