John Maindonald wrote:

There are issues here that I hope SSA will pursue.  The bigger issue is perhaps the extent to which a race to get papers published is working against research quality, in study design, execution, and data analysis.

I am thinking hard how to word my thoughts diplomatically. I have  been lucky enough to go to at least 4 or 5 top international level schools and programs. Even then I feel there are other factors at play in the world which work against quality

I have similar difficult to express issues about research ethics and justification of studies etc

I will check with ChatGPT how to word them diplomatically and respectfully get back to you

One small point in relation to student studies. They are generally hard to justify for any other reason than hopefully a bit of a learning exercise so hopefully etc. Note I did go the effort of checking my Honours Ethics application to vaguely reacquaint myself. How many harmless animals were inconvenienced for a bit of academic credit. Here is the exact question "Describe the potential benefits (to participants, researcher, institutions, community groups, and/or society at large) and explain how these are sufficient to justify the following: etc" No further comment but some of us would not be very welcome on Ethics committees.

My concerns would be more for all the "real" research

I would never lay claim to have reached particularly high pinnacles of statistical expertise but etc. Sometimes I feel some  of us have highly informed and justified concerns about such issues but have difficulty raising them respectfully. Many of us also were never raised or exposed to the kind of language regarded as respectful and are often pulled up over it. 

Thanks John

One change that the stats community could pursue is a requirement for statisticians to be on human ethics committees. This policy was championed by the late Sue Wilson a few years ago, and the society supported her, but there was no change to policy. I recently spoke with the chair of an ethics committee in South Australia who added a statistician and they felt it was a great success, as they've prevented many badly designed studies from starting. They called it "Putting the ambulance at the top of the cliff." But are there enough statisticians in Australia and New Zealand for this to become a national policy? I know there's a potential change here in Australia of fewer ethics committees who take on more work, so that would make it more feasible. It's also not an easy job trying to work out what some researchers are aiming to achieve, as researchers often have poor stats knowledge (using cut-and-paste methods) and aren't able to clearly describe their design.

Adrian