Postscript to “Statistics is not shit”

For context, please see the previous post.

I intentionally did not address what statistics is/does, nor what role it should have in the cognitive (neuro)sciences. Many of the attitudes and misunderstandings are all too familiar to me and are topics for a different blogpost (series). In the Twitter debate that spawned those comments, there is also a legitimate concern about the mismatch between the level of statistical expertise required and the level present in the cognitive sciences.

Instead, as indicated in the tl;dr, I really wanted to address the sociological aspect of insulting a group and then patronizing them instead of actually apologizing. But what bothered me even more is that the vast majority of my test readers warned me that I was burning bridges / poking the bear / creating all sorts of problems for myself. This is horrible. A senior, male figure with a tenured – i.e. secure – position at an American R1 institution (i.e. a person of great privilege) is intentionally ignorant, insulting and patronizing and calling that out is viewed as risky? Wow.