Lieu :  IAE de Paris, salle du Conseil de 18h à 20h 

18h00 - Le Professeur Steve Ziliak (Roosevelt University) nous présentera un papier intitulé "The Cult of Statistical Significance: Science after Gosset, Fisher, and Matrixx v. Siracusano "

Ce séminaire portera sur les travaux du Professeur Ziliak réalisés en lien avec le Professeur McCloskey sur la remise en cause de l'usage des tests de significativité statistique. Ces derniers travaux, comme le Professeur Ziliak l'expliquera, ont notamment été au fondement d'une décision récente du 22 mars 2011 de la Cour Suprême des Etats-Unis. Le séminaire porte sur une notion de statistique mais n'exige pas pour sa compréhension une expertise technique en la matière.

Abtract : We want to persuade you of one claim: that William Sealy Gosset (1876-1937) aka "Student" of "Student's" t-test-was right, and that his difficult friend, Ronald A. Fisher (1890-1962), though a genius, was wrong. Fit is not the same thing as importance. Statistical significance is not the same thing as scientific importance or economic sense. But the mistaken equation is made, we find, in 8 or 9 of 10 articles appearing in the leading journals of science, economics to medicine, worldwide. The history of this "standard error" of science involves varied characters and plot twists, but especially R. A. Fisher's canonical translation of Student's t-test. W.S. Gosset, aka "Student," working as Head Experimental Brewer at Guinness, took an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty. Against Gosset's wishes his friend Fisher erased the consciously economic and humanly important element, Gosset's "real error." We want to bring it back. Now, given the outcome of a recent U.S. Supreme Court case on the role of statistical significance to adverse effect reporting, in Matrixx v. Siracusano, it appears that United States securities law does, too.

Stephen T. Ziliak is the lead author of The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives (University of Michigan Press, 2008), a best-selling book with Deirdre N. McCloskey which forms the basis of their invited Supreme Court brief on Matrixx v. Siracusano. Ziliak has held academic appointments at a number of universities, including Emory and the Georgia Institute of Technology where, in 2002, he was awarded “Faculty Member of the Year” and, in 2003, “Most Intellectual Professor”. He is currently Trustee and Professor of Economics, Roosevelt University, and a member of the Economics Curriculum Committee Task Force at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).

Visit his websites at http://sites.roosevelt.edu/sziliak and http://stephentziliak.com.