ABSTRACT

Among statisticians, it is widely held that statistics is a science that relates to experiments and the quantification of uncertainty and thus provides guiding light for research workers and decision-makers. In brief, statistics is a discipline that is neglected by certain hard scientists but at same time overused (and misused) by quantitative researchers in soft sciences such as economics, earth science, psychology, education, and social science. It is important to note that there is nothing wrong with subjective knowledge, as long as one knows what one is doing. Soft scientists often complain that they are looked down upon by mathematicians and mathematical statisticians. By contrast, in soft sciences and in decision-making, formal statistical inferences are surprisingly irrelevant to most data one usually encounters. In addition, it is not only our responsibility to point out the misuse of statistics, but also it is a thrill when user (or user's students) uncover a professional slip committed by a famous scientist (or statistician).