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statistics + data
Since 2013, our Nature Methods Points of Significance column has been offering crisp explanations and practical suggestions about best practices in statistical analysis and reporting. To all our coauthors — thank you and see you in the next column!
Nature Methods: Points of Significance
Access all columns for free at Statistics for Biologists Nature Collection.
A Statistics Primer and Best Practices
The Points of Significance column was launched in September 2013 as an educational resource to authors and to provide practical suggestions about best practices in statistical analysis and reporting.
This month we launch a new column "Points of Significance" devoted to statistics, a topic of profound importance for biological research, but one that often doesn’t receive the attention it deserves.
The "aura of exactitude" that often surrounds statistics is one of the main notions that the Points of Significance column will attempt to dispel, while providing useful pointers on using and evaluating statistical measures.
—Dan Evanko, Let's Give Statistics the Attention it Deserves in Biological Research
The column is co-authored with Naomi Altman (Pennsylvania State University). Paul Blainey (Broad) is a contributing co-author.
Free Access
In February 2015, Nature Methods announced that the entire Points of Significance collection will be free.
When Nature Methods launched the Points of Significance column over a year ago we were hopeful that those biologists with a limited background in statistics, or who just needed a refresher, would find it accessible and useful for helping them improve the statistical rigor of their research. We have since received comments from researchers and educators in fields ranging from biology to meteorology who say they read the column regularly and use it in their courses. Hearing that the column has had a wider impact than we anticipated has been very encouraging and we hope the column continues for quite some time.
—Dan Evanko, Points of Significance now free access
Also, in a recent post on the ofschemesandmemes blog, a new statistics collection for biologists was announced.
The pieces range from comments, to advice on very specific experimental approaches, to the entire collection of the Points of Significance columns that address basic concepts in statistics in an experimental biology context. These columns, originally published in Nature Methods thanks to Martin Krzywinski and guest editor Naomi Altman, have already proven very popular with readers and teachers. Finally, the collection presents a web tool to create box plots among other resources.
—Veronique Kiermer, Statistics for biologists—A free Nature Collection
continuity and consistency
Each column is written with continuity and consistency in mind. Our goal is to never rely on concepts that we have not previously discussed. We do not assume previous statistical knowledge—only basic math. Concepts are illustrated using practical examples that embody the ideas without extraneous complicated details. All of the figures are designed with the same approach—as simple and self-contained as possible.
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news + thoughts
Music for the Moon: Flunk's 'Down Here / Moon Above'
The Sanctuary Project is a Lunar vault of science and art. It includes two fully sequenced human genomes, sequenced and assembled by us at Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre.
The first disc includes a song composed by Flunk for the (eventual) trip to the Moon.
But how do you send sound to space? I describe the inspiration, process and art behind the work.
Happy 2021 `\pi` Day—
A forest of digits
Celebrate `\pi` Day (March 14th) and finally see the digits through the forest.
This year is full of botanical whimsy. A Lindenmayer system forest – deterministic but always changing. Feel free to stop and pick the flowers from the ground.
And things can get crazy in the forest.
Check out art from previous years: 2013 `\pi` Day and 2014 `\pi` Day, 2015 `\pi` Day, 2016 `\pi` Day, 2017 `\pi` Day, 2018 `\pi` Day and 2019 `\pi` Day.
Testing for rare conditions
All that glitters is not gold. —W. Shakespeare
The sensitivity and specificity of a test do not necessarily correspond to its error rate. This becomes critically important when testing for a rare condition — a test with 99% sensitivity and specificity has an even chance of being wrong when the condition prevalence is 1%.
We discuss the positive predictive value (PPV) and how practices such as screen can increase it.
Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2021) Points of significance: Testing for rare conditions. Nature Methods 18:224–225.
Standardization fallacy
We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty! —D. Adams
A popular notion about experiments is that it's good to keep variability in subjects low to limit the influence of confounding factors. This is called standardization.
Unfortunately, although standardization increases power, it can induce unrealistically low variability and lead to results that do not generalize to the population of interest. And, in fact, may be irreproducible.
Not paying attention to these details and thinking (or hoping) that standardization is always good is the "standardization fallacy". In this column, we look at how standardization can be balanced with heterogenization to avoid this thorny issue.
Voelkl, B., Würbel, H., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2021) Points of significance: Standardization fallacy. Nature Methods 18:5–6.
Graphical Abstract Design Guidelines
Clear, concise, legible and compelling.
Making a scientific graphical abstract? Refer to my practical design guidelines and redesign examples to improve organization, design and clarity of your graphical abstracts.
"This data might give you a migrane"
An in-depth look at my process of reacting to a bad figure — how I design a poster and tell data stories.
He said, he said — a word analysis of the 2020 Presidential Debates
Building on the method I used to analyze the 2008, 2012 and 2016 U.S. Presidential and Vice Presidential debates, I explore word usagein the 2020 Debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Points of Significance celebrates 50th column
We are celebrating the publication of our 50th column!
To all our coauthors — thank you and see you in the next column!
