Spurious effects from an extraneous variable
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TL;DR
The size rule, a relationship between the size of an effect and its chance of being spurious, is developed and the application of this rule to controversies in the medical area is discussed.
Abstract
Spurious effects from an extraneous variable are a troublesome problem in many areas of research in the biological and behavioral sciences. While investigators have recognized intuitively that there is a relationship between the size of an effect and its chance of being spurious, current textbooks do not contain any explicit statement of this relationship. In this paper one such statement, the Size Rule, is developed. The application of this rule to controversies in the medical area is discussed.