[From the blog ““Tweeking”: The big problem is not where you think it is” by Andrew Gelman, posted at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science]

“In her recent article about pizzagate, Stephanie Lee included this hilarious email from Brian Wansink, the self-styled “world-renowned eating behavior expert for over 25 years”:

“OK, what grabs your attention is that last bit about “tweeking” the data to manipulate the p-value, where Wansink is proposing research misconduct (from NIH: “Falsification: Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record”).”

“But I want to focus on a different bit: “. . . although the stickers increase apple selection by 71% . . .””

“This is the type M (magnitude) error problem—familiar now to us, but not so familiar a few years ago to Brian Wansink, James Heckman, and other prolific researchers.”

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