By Science News
Significant issue
It is quite sad that your otherwise-excellent publication systematically fails to report error bars in your reports. Time and again I read articles and am left wondering whether the effect reported is even statistically significant. As just one example, “Treatment helps newborns avoid HIV” (SN: 10/25/03, p. 270: Treatment helps newborns avoid HIV) said that the rate of subsequent infection from breast milk dropped from 12 percent to 8 percent. Given the numbers in each sample, it is quite likely that the difference reported is simply due to chance.