In the editorial for the July 4 issue (free with registration), Editor-in-Chief Marcia McNutt outlines a new review board for articles submitted to Science. Joining the magazine’s Board of Reviewing Editors is a Statistical Board of Reviewing Editors. The American Statistical Association was an important partner to Science in developing the Statistical Board.
Members of the Statistical Board will be experts in the fields of statistics and data analysis. They will review articled identified by editors, members of the Board of Reviewing Editors or even reviewers as possibly needing additional scrutiny of the data analysis or statistical treatment. The Statistical Board member would identify any statistical issues with the paper and suggest experts to perform additional review.
The Statistical Board started on July 1 and is intended to help assess the possibilities of bias in data collection and presentation. With any luck they will collect data and conduct statistical analysis on its own work – and let the public see it.
Pasco Phronesis 