In general, I am strongly opposed to “all you need to know about person X is that they said Y”-style arguments. We all make mistakes, so preying on one particular error made by person X at one particular moment proves very little about person X’s general character or intelligence.
However, in light of the news that Donald Trump wants Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his head of Health and Human Services, I feel obligated to share the following Google Books screenshot from Kennedy’s 2023 book Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak.
Notice what it says about p-values, which are arguably the most fundamental concept in the entire field of statistics. Notice how the description is just plain wrong.
It’s almost as if the person slated to oversee (and/or cancel) billions of dollars’ worth of biomedical research doesn’t know the first thing about statistics.
Also of note: Kennedy and coauthor Brian Hooker dedicate this book to “the warriors and organizations who fought the good fight for years.” Some of these “heroes” are listed individually — including Andrew Wakefield, the physician who lost his medical license for publishing fake evidence purporting to show a correlation between vaccinations and autism.
Obviously, these book excerpts are NOT “all you need to know” about RFK Jr. (I actually kind of agree with him on fluoride!) But, to a trained scientist such as myself, they certainly are disturbing.
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