The P-Value Controversy: Where Do We Go from Here?

• Activity Number: 223 - The P-Value Controversy: Where Do We Go from Here?
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Monday, July 29, 2019 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Biopharmaceutical Section
• Author(s): Michael Lavine* and Jeffrey Blume* and Xihong Lin* and David Gal* and Lisa Strug* and Philip B. Stark*
• Companies: and Harvard and UC Berkeley and University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Vanderbilt University

Abstract

This session follows up on the historic American Statistical Association (ASA) Statement on P-values and Statistical Significance from 2016. The statement called for moving statistical analysis and evidence-based decision making beyond “bright line rules” toward a “post p < 0.05 era.” Although the problems identified in the statement have been known for several decades, previous expressions of concern and calls for action had not fostered broad improvements in practice. In response to this observation, the ASA sponsored the “Symposium on Statistical Inference (SSI)”, held October 2017, in Bethesda, MD, followed by a special issue on "Statistical Inference in the 21st Century: A World Beyond p<0.05" to be published in The American Statistician (TAS) early 2019. The symposium and this special issue of TAS constitute a major rethinking of statistical inference, aiming to initiate a process that ultimately moves statistical science and science itself into a new age.

In this session, we will discuss the proposals, how they might be implemented in practice, especially in biopharmaceutical applications, problems that remain unresolved, and potential reasons for the lack of consensus among them.