Research in psychology. 1) You use your students as subjects & generalise your results to all mankind 2) You assume your students are as variable as mankind at large 3) Because if they weren’t that would make the SMD a stupid measure 4) & everyone knows it’s the way you should report results.

Still trying to work out who won the Switzen versus Swederland curling match today so let’s play safe by snacking on Emmental smorgasbord.

So the women’s curling final will be between Swederland and Switzen. The bbc commentators will be in meltdown.

@macalestercollege.bsky.social I've written a Wikipedia page for Catharine Deaver Lealtad, as well as a blog post: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathari... absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2026/02/20/d...

Credit to the BBC ice-hockey commentators. They had no problem distinguishing Swederland and Switzen today unlike the curling commentators the other day. Hopp Sverige

Want to make your research more meaningful? Ornithology? Smear the lenses of your binoculars with vaseline. You may not be able to tell a hawk from an eagle but you won’t mistake a sparrow for an ostrich. Clinical research? Why not use responder dichotomies? pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

I read this wonderful book a couple of years after its publication in 2001 and continue to be impressed by its brilliance. “They wanted to create more social room for error because they thought this would give good outcomes a better chance to emerge.” P440

Hopp Suisse! Great ski by Loic Meillard. Sad for McGrath, however. #WO2026 #Skiing

Watching CH versus UK men's curling and the Brazilian commentator keeps on saying "Sweden" instead of "Switzerland" and "Swedish" instead of "Swiss". Did I say "Brazilian"? I think I meant "British". @bbcsportsblunders.bsky.social #curling

My week’s holiday downhill and cross-country skiing in Lenzerheide is now over. The weather was very kind. I am now on my way back to Edinburgh. #skiing #Graubunden #Switzerland

I am in Lenzerheide in canton Graubunden #skiing #Switzerland

Fascinating stuff. However, IMO, the value of double blind trials is not just dealing with patient- centred biases but physician-biases and this is often overlooked. www.linkedin.com/pulse/blind-...?

Lots of new followers recently, so it's good to remind you that I wrote a book all about data centres, AI and local communities and software developers fighting back. It's available all over and here's a handy link for digital and print books2read.com/humansoftware #booksky

Die, Dichotomy. www.linkedin.com/pulse/die-di... A brief post encouraging you to read the original paper with @erik-van-zwet.bsky.social and @f2harrell.bsky.social . onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

“They who wish to take up statistics must choose whether to be frayesian or bequentist.” Sayings of Confuseus

Lots of news in my latest next generation Covid vax update: - Self-amplifying mRNA vax Kostaive approved in the UK - New trial for mucosal vax starting in Finland - Results from AstraZeneca phase 1 trial for mRNA vax ... absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2026/01/31/a... 1/2 #Vaccines #Covid #Covid19

Today’s hike was from 8 mile burn to Flotterstone via S Black Hill, Scald Law, Carnethy Hill & the martyr’s monument at Rullion Green.

Interesting postdoc opportunity in biostatistics at the University of Zurich to work on patient recruitment in clinical trials data.snf.ch/grants/grant... with Malgorzata Roos www.ebpi.uzh.ch/en/research/... #biostatistics #postdoc #Switzerland

Burns Night tonight: senns.uk/Neep_Tide.htm

Have left Stoos by its spectacular funicular. Will be lecturing in Zurich tomorrow on Fisher’s 1926 paper.

Today’s hike was a meander below and above Stoos. #hiking #Switzerland (My identification of many of the peaks is just guesswork.)

A century ago RA Fisher proposed randomisation for allocating treatments in designed experiments. Ever since we have been misinterpreting this as a means for producing unbiased estimates but RAF proposed it for validly estimating standard errors. share.google/Hyfj5Ub07dcN...

Today we hiked up from Stoos to the Fronalpstock.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all those in awe of the Neyman-Pearson theory, that Nature pays no attention to your choice of alternative hypothesis. (Although you can occasionally, after careful conversation with Nature make a good choice yourself.)

I frequently find myself being added to reviewer databases without a by-your-leave. Does anyone know if this is legal?

It seems to me that a lot of discussion about personalised medicine is like this: “until I know which treatment will be better for my patients I shall continue to recommend the one that has been shown to be worse on average”.

We have arrived in Stoos, Schwyz via the world’s steepest funicular and are looking forward to some winter walking. #hiking #Switzerland

www.strathspey-herald.co.uk/news/badenoc... My daughter Helen’s account of her journey to China by bicycle with her husband Ed is now officially out.

100 years ago RA Fisher set out his views on randomisation. This blog of mine errorstatistics.com/2020/04/20/s... from five years ago tries to explain them.

1) A covariate that is predictive of outcome should be in the model even if unpredictive of assignment (eg matched pairs design). 2) A covariate that is not predictive of outcome should not be in the model, even if predictive of assignment. 3) The propensity score is stupid.

Any statistician who hates propensity scores and target populations can’t be all bad.

I sometimes think we had a clearer idea of what we should do for design and analysis of experiments in 1940 than in 2026. Our forbears studied spreading manure; we just do it.

Having started in Euston and gone out almost as far as Wembley we have now backed towards Kings Cross. It’s taken the train 50 minutes to do what I could in less than 20 on foot. Why didn’t the train just start at Kings Cross?

There is a baffling train “system” in this country. The Euston to Edinburgh train is currently backing in the direction of London because of something something Wembley.

@caledoniansleeper.bsky.social Less than 10 minutes to go before your train leaves to Edinburgh from Euston. You must know which platform it will leave from but can’t share the information. Disgraceful

“They who stick everything they have measured in the model will create a colliderscope of patterns.” Sayings of Confuseus

Today I did a short walk around Queensferry.

“You will find that many alternative medicine enthusiasts are into proidiotics.” Sayings of Confuseus

I continue to be annoying about ANOVA www.linkedin.com/pulse/poolin...

Today’s hike was a circular from Torphin. #hiking #Pentlands #Scotland

Tea and Grit www.helenwatsonwriting.com by @helenwatsonwriter.bsky.social is now officially published. DOI Helen Watson is my daughter!

I have been invited to write a book with the title “AI statistics/ statistics for ML”. I can only assume that this invitation has been written by AI since, obviously “maximum likelihood for statistics” is a plausible title but the converse is not.

Today’s hike was from Eight Mile Burn to Flotterstone via W& E Kip. #hiking #Pentlands #Scotland

I am a sick as a parrot #LUFC

My latest rant is on "two-way ANOVA" (ugh!) www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-wa...

Today’s hike was our last of 2025 (number 113 for me) and was from Hillend to Torphin via Caerketton and Allermuir. #hiking #Pentlands #Scotland

It’s been a great 4 days hiking while staying with our daughter and son in law. Now returning by train from Newtonmore.

Today we have climbed Craig Dhubh of Clan McPherson fame. #hiking #Scotland

Old fart pointedly pontificating while pointing. (Loch Insh in the background.)

Our Christmas Day hike was up An Suidhe by Kincraig #hiking #Scotland #Highland