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This is literally the definition of p-hacking, and no, it is not a good thing.
by jtc331 3y ago
This is literally the definition of p-hacking, and no, it is not a good thing.
- vba616 3y ago>if the correlation holds up and turns out to have some predictive value
- jeffparsons 3y agoSincere question from a non-scientist who struggles with the idea of how to make use of existing data without accidentally P-hacking: Is it still P-hacking if you stumble upon a correlation in the historical record (after stumbling around for a while), call it a hypothesis, and then stick with it long though to gather a statistically significant amount of _new_ data to support it? More broadly, are there ways to "go on a fishing expedition" that are still scientifically valid?
- ta988 3y agoAs long as you get new data in a way that can falsify your hypothesis that's fine. If you bias your data collection to favor your hypothesis that's still cheating.
- ozr 3y agoInarguably. The folks arguing that it's p-hacking aren't taking the next step of treating the correlation as a hypothesis, testing it, and establishing causality.
- jtc331 3y agoYeah, there are valid ways to use the data. Looking at the parent again perhaps I was misreading it; I was responding to the idea that you could find the correlation and just go straight from there.