> The problem is that you cannot define what is a "real effect" without begging the question That's precisely my point. We don't know the sizes of these popula

> The problem is that you cannot define what is a "real effect" without begging the question That's precisely my point. We don't know the sizes of these populations, so you really can't say anything quantitative about how the p-value affects the proportion of bad results in any given journal. My example was intentionally contrived. You just have to be really careful when you talk about p-values because _so many people_ have this misunderstanding and it's actively harmful to getting the correct interpretation. That's why we keep going back and forth here — I'm not disagreeing that the situation is bad, I just want folks to recognize what the stats say and what they don't.