Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
BMC Med. 2011 Feb 28;9:20. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-9-20.
Truth claims in the medical literature rely heavily on statistical significance testing. Unfortunately, most physicians misunderstand the underlying probabilistic logic of significance tests and consequently often misinterpret their results. This near-universal misunderstanding is highlighted by means of a simple quiz which we administered to 246 physicians at two major academic hospitals, on which the proportion of incorrect responses exceeded 90%. A solid understanding of the fundamental concepts of probability theory is becoming essential to the rational interpretation of medical information. This essay provides a technically sound review of these concepts that is accessible to a medical audience. We also briefly review the debate in the cognitive sciences regarding physicians' aptitude for probabilistic inference.
医学文献中的真实主张在很大程度上依赖于统计显著性检验。不幸的是，大多数医生误解了显著性检验的潜在概率逻辑，因此经常错误地解释他们的结果。我们向两家主要学术医院的 246 名医生进行了一项简单的测验，突出显示了这种近乎普遍的误解，其中错误回答的比例超过 90%。对概率论基本概念的牢固理解对于合理解释医学信息变得至关重要。本文提供了对这些概念的技术上合理的审查，适合医学听众。我们还简要回顾了认知科学领域关于医生进行概率推理能力的争论。
