Statisticians issue warning over misuse of P values
Offhanded use of statistics, especially by people without a solid scientific training, can lead to misleading conclusions.
Having spent long hours “on call” at the ER requires a lot of commitment and physical stamina. I know that because I spent more such hours during training than the average medical doctor (not by choice, but because I was forced to repeat several rotations I had done in previous years). Nonetheless, clinical training alone does not provide scientific insight, let alone the ability to design a scientific project and interpret the findings. Doing science requires a different set of skills, not available in the regular medical training (and no, reading journal articles does not provide such skills more than attending concerts prepares you to become a symphony orchestra performer).
Not acknowledging the aforementioned fact has led to a climate of doubt about the validity of a significant number of research reports, due to the reasons explained on this Nature article, among many others.
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