Peer review of statistics in medical research: the other problem

doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7348.1271

BMJ 2002;324:1271-1273 ( 25 May )

Education and debate

Peer review of statistics in medical research: the other problem

Peter Bacchetti, professor.

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-0560, USA

pbacchetti@epi.ucsf.edu

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Peer review has long been criticised for failing to identify flaws in research. Here Peter Bacchetti argues that it is alsoguilty of the opposite: finding flaws that are not there

The process of peer review before publication has long been criticised for failing to prevent the publication of statisticsthat are wrong, unclear, or suboptimal. ¹ ² My concern here,however, is not with failing to find flaws, but with the complementaryproblem of finding flaws that are not reallythere.

My impression as a collaborating and consulting statistician is that spurious criticism of sound statistics is increasinglycommon, mainly from subject matter reviewers with limited statisticalknowledge. Of the subject matter manuscript reviews I see thatraise statistical issues, perhaps half include a mistaken criticism.In grant reviews unhelpful statistical comments seem to be a nearcertainty, mainly due to unrealistic expectations concerning samplesize planning. While funding or publication . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Could not agree more!: BM HEGDE
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Review Team?: Reinhard Vonthein
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a partial solution to the other problem: Mary Fox
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Author's replies to three responses: Peter Bacchetti
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Ask the authors what they think: Tim J Cole
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Ethical overkill: Richard D Colman
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