Imperial College London
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ProfessorDavidHand

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Mathematics

Senior Research Investigator
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 2843d.j.hand CV

 
 
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Assistant

 

Mrs Agnieszka Damasiewicz Niccolai +44 (0)20 7594 2843

 
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Location

 

547Huxley BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Hand:2022:10.1111/rssa.12752,
author = {Hand, D},
doi = {10.1111/rssa.12752},
journal = {Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society},
pages = {329--347},
title = {Trustworthiness of statistical inference},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rssa.12752},
volume = {185},
year = {2022}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - We examine the role of trustworthiness and trust in statistical inference, arguing that it is theextent of trustworthiness in inferential statistical tools which enables trust in the conclusions.Certain tools, such as the pvalue and significance test, have recently come under renewedcriticism, with some arguing that they damage trust in statistics. We argue the contrary,beginning from the position that the central role of these methods is to form the basis fortrusted conclusions in the face of uncertainty in the data, and noting that it is the misuse andmisunderstanding of these tools which damages trustworthiness and hence trust. We go on toargue that recent calls to ban these tools would tackle the symptom, not the cause, andthemselves risk damaging the capability of science to advance, as well as risking feeding intopublic suspicion of the discipline of statistics. The consequence could be aggravated mistrust ofour discipline and of science more generally. In short, the very proposals could work in quitethe contrary direction from that intended. We make some alternative proposals for tackling themisuse and misunderstanding of these methods, and for how trust in our discipline might bepromoted.
AU  - Hand,D
DO  - 10.1111/rssa.12752
EP  - 347
PY  - 2022///
SN  - 0964-1998
SP  - 329
TI  - Trustworthiness of statistical inference
T2  - Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rssa.12752
UR  - https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rssa.12752
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/91555
VL  - 185
ER  -
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