Does the sex of the child depend on the morning porridge?

What kind of tribe is the seed? What the statistics actually say
Does Bran Make the Man? What Statistics Really Tell Us (Melinda Beck, The Wall Street Journal, 27.01.2009)
Translation: Inopressa

Melinda Beck of The Wall Street Journal shows by one example that the results of various studies published in scientific periodicals are not always trustworthy.

In April of last year, the article "You are what your mother eats" made a noise (see its retelling in our article "Do you want to give birth to a boy? We need to eat more porridge, especially for breakfast!" – VM) from the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The authors surveyed 740 pregnant women and found that 56% of those who ate the most high-calorie food before conception had boys, while among women who most restricted themselves in food, boys were born in 45%. Researchers observed the strongest correlation with the male sex of newborns in breakfast cereals.

American statisticians declared this news nonsense, referring to the fact that the British received a false relationship.

Such errors are not uncommon, Beck writes, referring to specialists. To prove this, scientists from Ontario conducted an analysis of the distribution of patients in one hospital by zodiac signs. As a result, it turned out that "Sagittarians are especially prone to fractures, Fish are prone to heart failure, and so on." When replacing the focus group, of course, completely different results were obtained.

In order to minimize the number of accidents, statisticians advise setting stricter proof criteria. You can, for example, use the so-called Bonferroni correction (if 100 food products are being studied, then in order to recognize the relationship as significant, it must be 100 times stronger than in the study of a single product) or adhere to strict rules of clinical trials: the presence of test and control groups with a single variable.

So "it's too early to paint the nursery," sums up Beck.

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru28.01.2009