Category Archives: Statistics

Psychology Journal Bans Almost All of Statistics

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Bob O'H

Amongst the big news last week (besides the octopus-squid battle, a dress, and a singer falling over whilst – presumably – sober) was the release of an editorial from the journal “Basic and Applied Social Psychology” (BASP) which announced that … Continue reading →

Posted in Science Publishing, Statistics | 9 Comments

Come and work with me in Frankfurt!

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Bob O'H

We’ve got an EXCITING(!) EXHILARATING(!!) ENTERTAINING(!!!) EXASPERATING(!V) opportunity for someone wanting to do a post-doc in Frankfurt, working in the Data and Modelling group here at BiK-F. I’ll be one of the people supervising the project. The official announcement is … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecology, Science Blogging, Statistics | 4 Comments

The long and the short of papal reigns

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Bob O'H

If you’ve been following the news, or twitter, you’ll have noticed that the current pope, Pope Benedict XVI (pronounces Kss-vee) has decided to retire at the end of the month, to spend more time with his twitter account. Anyway, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Statistics | 15 Comments

Changing ecologists’ statistics to statistics about nature

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Bob O'H

Whilst my back was turned, I had another paper published online early. It’s rather embarrassing that I didn’t notice, because I’m an Executive Editor for the journal. The paper is, of course, superb (most of the work was done by … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecology, Statistics | 8 Comments

Abusing a Prior: some slides

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Bob O'H

Here are the slides for my talk today about Bayesian variable selection. It’s mainly of interest to other statisticians, my excuse is that I’m talking at a statistical meeting (and I’m a keynote speaker! Wooo!).

Posted in Statistics | Comments Off on Abusing a Prior: some slides

Fossils, Fun, and Frailities. And Statistics #isec2012

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Bob O'H

If I’ve done everything correctly, then at almost the moment this post appears, I will start talking about some fossils. Not, it’s not a eulogy about defenders of the 4-4-2 formation, but it’s about a bit of work I’ve been … Continue reading →

Posted in Research Blogging, Statistics | Comments Off on Fossils, Fun, and Frailities. And Statistics #isec2012

Doing stuff with Ecological Networks

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Bob O'H

A few months ago one of my former post-docs mentioned that he had been thinking about ecological networks. One common type of network is a bipartite network, for example a plant-frugivore network, where members of one group (e.g. frugivores) may … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecology, Research Blogging, Statistics | Comments Off on Doing stuff with Ecological Networks

BaSTA – More fun than a Swedish sauna

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Bob O'H

One day, a few years ago, I was drinking with some fellow biologists in “Seminar Room A” opposite the Natural History Museum in Helsinki. The Sibelius Academy is next door to the museum, so we shared the bar with musicians. … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecology, Research Blogging, Statistics | 2 Comments

The Problems of Interpreting Data

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Bob O'H

A few weeks ago Science published a paper which claimed that biodiversity was important for the functioning of dry grasslands. This claim was strange because the analysis suggested that biodiversity wasn’t very important – it only explained about 4% of … Continue reading →

Posted in Statistics | 30 Comments

PCa and PCoA explained

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Bob O'H

Just before Christmas I was asked to talk to our molecular biologists about multivariate analyses. I was reminded of this on Thursday afternoon, when I saw that I had to talk to them on Friday. “Ah, no problem”, I thought. … Continue reading →

Posted in R, Statistics | 8 Comments