Science 9 March 2012:
Vol. 335 no. 6073 pp. 1159-1159
DOI:10.1126/science.335.6073.1159
Vol. 335 no. 6073 pp. 1159-1159
DOI:10.1126/science.335.6073.1159
News & Analysis
Last Hurrah: Final Tevatron Data Show Hints of Higgs Boson
This week, scientists working with an atom smasher called the Tevatron, which shut down in September 2011, reported that, having analyzed all the data they'll ever get, they see hints of the Higgs boson.
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Douglas Kell
As with the previous piece on this topic (Cho A: Search for Higgs boson yields a definite maybe. Science 2011; 334:1482-1483), this item contains another VERY poorly explained graph. The 'observed' trace at 130 GeV is furthest from the 'expected' line, but it is in a region said to be 'excluded by the LHC', so it can hardly be 'significant'. And if the measurements at each GeV are independent a Bonferroni correction needs to be applied [1], thereby decreasing massively any chance of statistical significance. Was it? 6 separate tests out of 1000 with random noise give a value > 3SD away from the local mean. It would be better if the statistics were explained properly. 'Discovering' particles that do not exist, such as the recent tachyonic neutrinos, does no one credit.
[1] Broadhurst D, Kell DB: Statistical strategies for avoiding false discoveries in metabolomics and related experiments. Metabolomics 2006; 2:171-196.