Maggie's Farm

Deirdre McCloskey wrote a wonderful paper on the lack of significance in statistical significance. Basically saying something is statistically significant means the numbers involved fall within a standard set of expectations which are meaningful, but says nothing about whether the study itself is meaningful.

In my industry, we have a group which certifies vendors. The certification basically is meaningless. All it does is assure anyone using the vendor that the vendor's measurements and products do what they say it can do. The certification says nothing at all about the value of the vendor's products, which could be nothing more than snake oil.
This is statistical significance applied to business...