Stephen Senn
banner
stephensenn.bsky.social
Stephen Senn
@stephensenn.bsky.social
Swiss & British statistician.
Fraudulent research should be withdrawn.
November 8, 2025 at 6:59 PM
OK So here’s a list of errors in meta-analysis in (mainly) Cochrane Collaboration work. bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
I don’t think any of them have been withdrawn. Which ones should have been?
Overstating the evidence – double counting in meta-analysis and related problems - BMC Medical Research Methodology
Background The problem of missing studies in meta-analysis has received much attention. Less attention has been paid to the more serious problem of double counting of evidence. Methods Various problem...
bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com
November 8, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Especially as a younger author I had many letters to the editors published pointing out errors in statistics. The original papers were never withdrawn and I never expected that they should be. My letter would nearly always be accompanied by an author’s reply. That’s what I think should happen.
November 8, 2025 at 7:28 AM
Some mistake surely. Any Frenchman can tell you “la philosophie ovale” is rugby.
November 6, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Having worked in both academia and pharma, I have the following point of view. “You should treat all RCT based claims with caution, especially those coming from academia.”
November 3, 2025 at 7:38 AM
I decline to answer that.
November 3, 2025 at 7:31 AM
I don’t necessarily disagree but you can make the inclusion criteria as wide as you like but it is no guarantee that you will get a wide selection of patients. If you do want to use covariates to define applicability, it’s the values of patients you did include not those you might have that matter.
November 2, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Sympathy.
November 2, 2025 at 10:48 AM
I think you’ll find that crowns, pounds, guineas, pearls and rubies are more traditional. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52706/...
When I Was One-and-Twenty
When I was one-and-twenty        I heard a wise man say, “Give crowns and pounds and guineas        But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies        But keep your fancy free.” But I was one...
www.poetryfoundation.org
November 1, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Brave of you to go West. I remember when I used to live in Fife, people would speak in hushed voices trying to hide their dread when they had to go West.
November 1, 2025 at 6:47 PM
I bex we do.
November 1, 2025 at 9:52 AM
It reminds me of the two sorts of manager. Those who run a tight ship and the other sort.
November 1, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Heaven forfend that they should do anything that went against the grain.
October 31, 2025 at 8:41 PM
And of the agriculturalists who like a hoedown you say nothing.
October 31, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Let’s hear it for flawed paradox.
October 31, 2025 at 6:41 PM
I remember being taught to always draw a flow diagram before I wrote a program and so of course I always do that or at least I would do if I hadn’t lost that plastic template in 1973.
October 31, 2025 at 5:40 PM
I think it sounds normal now but would have sounded strange some years ago.
October 31, 2025 at 12:32 PM