A power fallacy

A power fallacy.

The power fallacy refers to the misconception that what holds on average -across an ensemble of hypothetical experiments- also holds for each case individually. According to the fallacy, high-power experiments always yield more informative data than do low-power experiments. Here we expose the fallacy with concrete examples, demonstrating that a particular outcome from a high-power experiment c...

The “banzhaf Fallacy” Fallacy

A Social Security Fallacy

The article investigates whether compulsory old age provisions are justified from an econom-ic point of view. According to a standard argument, some people would not provide suffi-

The Abuse of Power: The Pervasive Fallacy of Power Calculations for Data Analysis

It is well known that statistical power calculations can be valuable in planning an experiment. There is also a large literature advocating that power calculations be made whenever one performs a statistical test of a hypothesis and one obtains a statistically nonsigniŽ cant result. Advocates of such post-experiment power calculations claim the calculations should be used to aid in the interpre...

A right Royal porphyria fallacy.

We were intrigued by the cover image for the November 2011 issue of Clinical Chemistry, which showed a cover picture claiming that Mary Queen of Scots had a diagnosis of acute porphyria. The diagnosis of porphyria is usually assigned when a presenting patient is currently symptomatic; the range of indicative symptoms is diverse but relatively well defined. The 3 most common acute porphyrias are...