Can our statistics survive the replication crisis?
Guests Drs. Sharon Klinkenberg & Prof. Dr. Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
Date 7 / 2 / 2023
Time 12:00 - 13:00
Location Science Park 904, University of Amsterdam FNWI
The largest academic scandal in the Netherlands and a study claiming that humans can predict the future set the alarm bells off: something is wrong with our statistics! The mention of statistics will bring joy to some, pain in others. But we promise that this first BetaBreak edition of the year will shed light on the use of statistics most people are unfamiliar with. Together with Prof. Eric Jan Wagenmakers and Prof. Sharon Klinkenberg we will be discussing how statistics has been used and abused to cause some of the biggest scandals in science. Other topics discussed will be the dubious role of publishing companies and the upcoming movement of “Open Science”.
About the speaker
Drs. Sharon Klinkenberg is a lecturer at the department of Psychology. His teaching is mainly focussed on statistics and Psychological methods. Sharon is an educational innovator at the forefront of educational technology. As a winner of the national SURF education award, he specialised in digital assessment, and integrates formative and summative assessment in order to personalize large scale education. His research is focussed on the validity and reliability of adaptive assessment methods and the effectiveness of blended learning interventions.
Prof. Dr. Eric-Jan Wagenmakers is a mathematical psychologist. He is a professor at the Methodology Unit in the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Since 2012, he has also been Professor of Neurocognitive Modeling: Interdisciplinary Integration at UvA's Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences. A noted expert on research methods in psychology, he has been highly critical of some dubious practices by his fellow psychologists, including Daryl Bem's research purporting to find support for the parapsychological concept of extrasensory perception, and the tendency for psychologists in general to favor the publication of studies with surprising, eye-catching results. He has also been actively addressing the replication crisis in psychology by helping to conduct a series of studies aimed at reproducing a 1988 study on the supposed effects of smiling on the perceived funniness of cartoons.
