Related papers: The Search for Truth through Data: NP Decision Pro…
Reinforcement learning methods carry a well known bias-variance trade-off in n-step algorithms for optimal control. Unfortunately, this has rarely been addressed in current research. This trade-off principle holds independent of the choice…
Consider the problem of binary hypothesis testing. Given $Z$ coming from either $\mathbb P^{\otimes m}$ or $\mathbb Q^{\otimes m}$, to decide between the two with small probability of error it is sufficient, and in many cases necessary, to…
Which type of statistical uncertainty -- statistical (in)significance with a p-value, or a Bayesian probability -- enables people to see the continuous nature of uncertainty more clearly in a policymaking context? An original survey…
In earlier work, we introduced flexible inference and decision-theoretic metareasoning to address the intractability of normative inference. Here, rather than pursuing the task of computing beliefs and actions with decision models composed…
Consider a countably infinite set of nodes, which sequentially make decisions between two given hypotheses. Each node takes a measurement of the underlying truth, observes the decisions from some immediate predecessors, and makes a decision…
Significance testing based on p-values has been implicated in the reproducibility crisis in scientific research, with one of the proposals being to eliminate them in favor of Bayesian analyses. Defenders of the p-values have countered that…
Deciding whether a model provides a good description of data is often based on a goodness-of-fit criterion summarized by a p-value. Although there is considerable confusion concerning the meaning of p-values, leading to their misuse, they…
We consider statistical hypothesis testing simultaneously over a fairly general, possibly uncountably infinite, set of null hypotheses, under the assumption that a suitable single test (and corresponding $p$-value) is known for each…
We show that publishing results using the statistical significance filter---publishing only when the p-value is less than 0.05---leads to a vicious cycle of overoptimistic expectation of the replicability of results. First, we show…
Selective inference is a subfield of statistics that enables valid inference after selection of a data-dependent question. In this paper, we introduce selectively dominant p-values, a class of p-values that allow practitioners to easily…
Nurses should rely on the best evidence, but tend to struggle with statistics, impeding research integration into clinical practice. Statistical significance, a key concept in classical statistics, and its primary metric, the p-value, are…
In a recent opinion article, Muff et al. recapitulate well-known objections to the Neyman-Pearson Null-Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) framework and call for reforming our practices in statistical reporting. We agree with them on…
Null hypothesis significance tests and p values are widely used despite very strong arguments against their use in many contexts. Confidence intervals are often recommended as an alternative, but these do not achieve the objective of…
Every scientific endeavour consists of (at least) two components: A hypothesis on the one hand and data on the other. There is always a more or less abstract level - some theory, a set of concepts, certain relations of ideas - and a…
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in applications requiring factual accuracy, yet their outputs often contain hallucinated responses. While fact-checking can mitigate these errors, existing methods typically retrieve…
The need for recognition/approximation of functions in terms of elementary functions/operations emerges in many areas of experimental mathematics, numerical analysis, computer algebra systems, model building, machine learning, approximation…
In many fields of research null hypothesis significance tests and p values are the accepted way of assessing the degree of certainty with which research results can be extrapolated beyond the sample studied. However, there are very serious…
The composite binary hypothesis testing problem within the Neyman-Pearson framework is considered. The goal is to maximize the expectation of a nonlinear function of the detection probability, integrated with respect to a given probability…
Assigning significance in high-dimensional regression is challenging. Most computationally efficient selection algorithms cannot guard against inclusion of noise variables. Asymptotically valid p-values are not available. An exception is a…
Mathematics is a limited component of solutions to real-world problems, as it expresses only what is expected to be true if all our assumptions are correct, including implicit assumptions that are omnipresent and often incorrect.…