The Spread of Evidence-Poor Medicine via Flawed Social-Network Analysis
Abstract
We present cautionary examples of what can go wrong when assumptions behind statistical procedures are insufficiently examined by authors and reviewers, even when the analysis is performed by highly reputed practitioners. Our examples come from a series of recent papers by Christakis and Fowler that advance statistical arguments for the transmission via social networks of various personal characteristics, including obesity, smoking cessation, happiness, and loneliness. Those papers also assert that such influence extends to three degrees of separation in social networks. We shall show that these conclusions do not follow from their statistical analyses. We also discuss the relevance of this episode to understanding statistical literacy and to reforming statistical education.Keywords
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