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| Sports Commentary |
 Title text: The plural of anecdote may not be data, but the singular of data is anecdote. |
Explanation
P-hacking is the academically problematic practice of attempting to come up with a question for which the data offers a significant p-value (probability value). This is in contrast to correct scientific analysis, in which a question is formulated clearly and then answered with data. A common way of doing p-hacking is analyzing subgroups to attempt to find significance when the full dataset does not yield statistically significant results; for instance, restricting the analysis of medical data to male subjects to derive a significant p-value when including female subjects would make the p-value insignificant, when the scientific question is largely gender-independent. Sports commentators do a form of p-hacking in which they cite a fact that's made to sound more significant by restricting the situations it applies to. Randall satirizes this with an example in which the restriction uses very specific criteria largely irrelevant to gameplay patterns in order to narrow down the subgroup sample size to a measly two games. Obviously the 0-2 record reflects random noise much more than any significant insight. As well as being irrelevant to gameplay, their p-hacking also makes the game sound like jargon, which can be confusing and difficult to understand. This is ironic given a sports commentator's job is to explain matches and suchlike, rather than making them harder and more vague. P-hacking was also the subject of 882: Significant.
This comic was published 11 days into the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The World Cup was also the subject of 3260: Messi, published the previous Wednesday. Sports commentary was also the subject of 904: Sports.
Transcript
- [Cueball and Ponytail are sitting at a table, looking at the wall behind them. On the wall is a screen showing a soccer field with some unreadable score information above it.(The only readable information is that the score is 2-1.)]
- Cueball: They could be in trouble. Over the last 36 years, they've gone 0 for 2 when they've scored in the 37th minute to lead 2-1 against a team whose country comes before theirs alphabetically.
- [Caption below comic:]
- I wish sports commentators hadn't discovered p-hacking.
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