Lab Statistics & Math

This column is loaded with pop quizzes for you to test yourself on. If you haven’t already done so, catch up on yesterday’s piece on hypothesis testing for a refresher. Take a gander at the table below for a summary of the two types of error that can result from hypothesis testing. Type I Errors occur…

Hypothesis testing is the foundation around which we prove our science is worth funding, publishing and sitting through a conference presentation for. I can’t overstate the  importance of understanding hypothesis testing, such is the integral part it plays in biological analyses. The Null Hypothesis Fundamental to statistics is the concept of a null hypothesis, and…

In this, the first in a series of articles on statistics, I want to set out some of the main reasons why you, as a biologist, should improve your knowledge of statistics. The general consensus is that biologists are not strong when it comes to statistics. There’s nothing in our brains that stops us from…

Greg Petsko, President of the American Society for Biochemistry wrote a very interesting article recently in which he drew attention to the parallels between the PhD/Postdoc system and the medieval trade guilds, and the problems our profession faces because it is drifting away from that system. In the trade guild system the right of an…

….statistics. The very word strikes fear into the heart of many a biologist (including me). In an article published earlier this year, Cumming and co-workers of La Trobe University, Melbourne gave a very useful rundown of common mistakes made when using statistical error bars in biology and suggested a number of rules that should be…