8 Ethical concerns in data analysis

8.1 Relating to individuals

• Consent
  • Given freely
  • Given for a specific purpose
  • Given with relevant information made clear
  • Given unambiguously
• Privacy and anonymization
  • Latanya Sweeney on anonymity and predictive tools
• Use of predictive methods
  • Discriminatory results in credit card offers
  • Using predictive methods to make parole and sentencing decisions
    • Paper critical of these predictive methods
    • Paper supportive of these predictive methods

8.2 Relating to policy

• Looking back: Adrian Simpson’s critique of education meta-analysis

• The worst hypothesis tests ever

• Statistical tools in drug trials:

  • Ben Goldacre on “what doctors don’t know about the drugs they prescribe”
  • the COMPARE project

• Turning data into medical advice

  • “Objective Randomised Blinded Investigation With Optimal Medical Therapy of Angioplasty in Stable Angina (ORBITA) and coronary stents: A case study in the analysis and reporting of clinical trials”

• Statistical arguments in courts of law

  • UK guide on the use of statistics in legal proceedings

  • The tragic case of Sally Clark

  • The Prosecutor’s Fallacy

8.3 Relating to science

• The “Replication Crisis”

• Incentives problems in scientific publishing

  • “p-hacking”
  • “HARKing”
  • “The file drawer”
  • Quantity over quality? How many fields could have a Large Hadron Collider type project?

• Publication bias

  • Registered Reports
  • Preregistration

• Communicating science