Main description:

This book illustrates numerous statistical practices that are commonly used by medical researchers, but which have severe flaws that may not be obvious. For each example, it provides one or more alternative statistical methods that avoid misleading or incorrect inferences being made. The technical level is kept to a minimum to make the book accessible to non-statisticians. At the same time, since many of the examples describe methods used routinely by medical statisticians with formal statistical training, the book appeals to a broad readership in the medical research community.

Contents:

1 Why Bother With Statistics?.- 2 Frequentists and Bayesians.- 3 Knocking Down the Straw Man.- 4 Science and Belief.- 5 The Perils of P-values.- 6 Flipping Coins.- 7 All Mixed Up.- 8 Sex, Biomarkers, and Paradoxes.- 9 Crippling New Treatments.- 10 Just Plain Wrong.- 11 Getting Personal.- 12 Multistage Treatment Regimes.- References.