In episode 8 of the Statistically Insignificant podcast Jaryd and I are joined by my good friend Eric Mackay, a Senior Statistician at Cytel. Eric has an academic background in econometrics and statistics, as well as extensive professional expertise in applied biostatistical analysis. We cover a variety of topics including why Eric left the economics profession, the difficulty of translating statistical concepts into practical terms, and whether international travel is overrated. Note: this episode contains the use of technical jargon which some listeners may find boring.

Show notes

1. The likelihood of approval for oncology drugs is only 5%, the lowest success rate for all medical indications
2. Vinay Prasad’s critique of surrogate endpoints and cancer drug efficacy
3. Most cancer drug approvals are not based on overall survival, and the majority of associated clinical studies are at high risk of statistical bias
4. Statistical paradises and paradoxes of big data: 400 truly random samples can be better than 2.3 million observations if the latter have a measurement bias
5. Machine learning algorithms can erroneously conclude that asthma is a “protective” factor for pneumonia due to observational confounding
6. For books introducing Bayesian statistics see: The Theory That Would Not Die and Bayesian Data Analysis