Two Dark Side Statistics Papers

Summarises two "dark side" statistics papers. Simmons et al.'s "False Positive Psychology" demonstrates p-hacking via four researcher degrees of freedom (multiple dependent variables, optional stopping, controlling for confounders, multiple conditions), "proving" that hearing "When I'm Sixty-Four" made listeners younger. The second is a sardonic how-to for inflating alcoholism-treatment success rates (pick your denominator, redefine "success", drop the control group). A vivid lesson in how flexible analysis manufactures significance.

Quality 66 · Strong. An excellent, lucid explainer of researcher degrees of freedom and outcome-gaming via two real papers - very useful pedagogy - but it summarises others' work rather than contributing its own. Strong.

Claude’s paradigm shift 28 · Slight. The paradigm-shifting content belongs to the cited papers (Simmons 2011, a landmark of the replication crisis); this is popularisation, not origination. Slight.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A lucid explainer of researcher-degrees-of-freedom / p-hacking via two real papers; valuable pedagogy within the discourse but summarizes others' work, with no material reach → RWI 2.