Towards sound epistemological foundations of statistical methods for high-dimensional biology.
A sound epistemological foundation for biological inquiry comes, in part, from application of valid statistical procedures. This tenet is widely appreciated by scientists studying the new realm of high-dimensional biology, or 'omic' research, which involves multiplicity at unprecedented scales. Many papers aimed at the high-dimensional biology community describe the development or application of statistical techniques. The validity of many of these is questionable, and a shared understanding about the epistemological foundations of the statistical methods themselves seems to be lacking. Here we offer a framework in which the epistemological foundation of proposed statistical methods can be evaluated.
Mehta
Tapan
T
Department of Biostatistics, Section on Statistical Genetics, Ryals Public Health Building, Suite 327, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1665 University Boulevard, Birmingham, Alabama 35294, USA.
Tanik
Murat
M
Allison
David B
DB
D005821:Genetic Techniques / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D019359:Knowledge; D008128:Logic; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000379:methods*