Science is widely recognized as an effective process for developing reliable understanding of the natural world, but science is not all equally reliable. In a number of disciplines ranging from ecology and conservation to psychology, nutrition, and medicine, there is growing recognition that certain common but ‘questionable’ research practices undermine reliability. In this course, students will learn about these ‘questionable research practices’, the statistical principles that make them ‘questionable’, and the institutional incentives that have promoted their use. Students will gain experience recognizing unreliable research practices and will critically evaluate scientific claims both in the scientific literature and in the popular press. Further, they will evaluate and debate proposals for practices and policies designed to reduce bias and improve reliability. This course meets once per week for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Any statistics course.