Why multiple hypothesis test corrections provide poor control of false positives in the real world.

Abstract

Most scientific disciplines use significance testing to draw conclusions about experimental or observational data. This classical approach provides a theoretical guarantee for controlling the number of false positives across a set of hypothesis tests, making it an appealing framework for scientists seeking to limit the number of false effects or associations that they claim to observe. Unfortunately, this theoretical guarantee applies to few experiments, and the true false positive rate (FPR) is much higher. Scientists have plenty of freedom to choose the error rate to control, the tests to include in the adjustment, and the method of correction, making strong error control difficult to attain. In addition, hypotheses are often tested after finding unexpected relationships or patterns, the data are analyzed in several ways, and analyses may be run repeatedly as data accumulate. As a result, adjusted p values are too small, incorrect conclusions are often reached, and results are harder to reproduce. In the following, I argue why the FPR is rarely controlled meaningfully and why shrinking parameter estimates is preferable to p value adjustments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).