THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Concepts and procedures in statistics are inherent to publications in science. Based on the incidence of standard deviations, standard errors, and confidence intervals in articles published by the American Physiological Society (APS), however, many scientists appear to misunderstand fundamental concepts in statistics (9). In addition, statisticians have documented that statistical errors are common in the scientific literature: roughly 50% of published articles have at least one error (1, 2). This misunderstanding and misuse of statistics jeopardizes the process of scientific discovery and the accumulation of scientific knowledge. In an effort to improve the caliber of statistical information in articles they publish, most journals have policies that govern the reporting of statistical procedures and results. These were the previous guidelines for reporting statistics in the Information for Authors (3) provided by the APS: 1) In the MATERIALS AND METHODS, authors were told to “describe the statistical methods that were used to evaluate the data.” 2) In the RESULTS, authors were told to “provide the experimental data and results as well as the particular statistical significance of the data.” 3) In the DISCUSSION, authors were told to “Explain your interpretation of the data. . . .” To an author unknowing about statistics, these guidelines gave almost no help. In its 1988 revision of Uniform Requirements (see Ref. 13, p. 260), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors issued these guidelines for reporting statistics: