E&E Seminar Series: Show me the data: Myths, misconceptions and recurring advice from statistical consulting at RSB

Elle Saber

ABSTRACT

People often arrive at statistics drop-in looking for the correct statistical test and hoping for a significant p-value. We usually respond by asking about birds, bacteria, experimental units and what happened during data collection. Part myth-busting and part hand-me-down advice, this talk will reflect on some common misconceptions about statistics and share the lessons we find ourselves repeating every week.

BIOGRAPHY

Elle completed her PhD in Statistics at ANU’s Research School of Finance, Actuarial Studies and Statistics and is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the ARC Training Centre for Plant Biosecurity. She has taught applied statistics across biology, finance and economics, including BIOL8001: Scientific Reasoning and Consulting in Quantitative Biology. Elle and other members of the Stone Lab (previous the Biological Data Science Institute) volunteer their time at the biological statistics drop-in sessions every week, providing study-design and data-analysis advice to life sciences researchers and students across the ANU.