The journal Sustainability is really stretching the concept of "regression table" in the year of our lord 2025.

Left:
Frankenstein's monster (t-stats vs SEs in parentheses in the same table)

Right:
two rows of values in parentheses after the coefficient... BOGOF?

pubpeer.com/publications...

question: what thresholds were used to label the coefficients as statistically significant?

answer: yes

pubpeer.com/publications...

pubpeer.com/publications...

pubpeer.com/publications...

Unfortunately these researchers really need to be reported for cruel and discriminatory treatment of their test statistics...

I mean, look! This poor t-stat -0.53 gets NO STARS, while his almost-identical neighbour -0.52 get TWO STARS.

That's not fair! 😡😠😖

This paper comes courtesy of two researchers at the Northeast Petroleum University in Daqing, China.

They've been on quite a run this year.

As well as this one, they have two more in Sustainability, both accepted in <40 days.

SIX cases of max < min. It's an epidemic.

And even if we "correct" the table by flipping those around, we'd still have a mean that's not contained in [min, max], plus his Large Adult Son, SD = 3.409 (bigger than the range!)

So maybe for that row in particular, they switched min/max AND mean/sd?

Double bonus question: can you spot TWO "sibling" tortured phrases (i.e., that derive from the same phrase)?

❌ Error 1 (level: EASY)

Solid waste has mean (0.624) > max (0.525)

❌ Error 2 (level: MEDIUM)

Solid waste and fiscal revenue have SD > range/2

0.53 > (0.525-0.1)/2 = 0.2125
0.926 > (1.2-0.024)/2 = 0.588

The top search results for "Claire Pan" "Cornell University" point to someone who majored in "Applied Economics and Management" and graduated with an undergraduate degree in 2020.

If this is the right person, then she reviewed this paper (Mar/Apr 2022) while working at a venture capital firm... 🤔

There are very few scholars involved in this Research Topic (as editors, reviewers or authors) who are NOT at an institution in China.

One notable exception is "Claire Pan, Cornell University", who reviewed this paper: www.frontiersin.org/journals/env...

This paper is part of a Frontiers "Research Topic" co-edited by Wenqiu Ma, Guanghui Jiang and Yanbo Qu, in which:

WM edits a paper by GJ & YQ
YQ edits a paper by WM & GJ
WM edits / YQ reviews a paper by GJ
WM, GJ, YQ were previously coauthors

www.frontiersin.org/research-top...

well knock me down with a feather! you're telling me this paper was published in that bastion of credibility, Frontiers in Environmental Science??

shurely shome mishtake?

www.frontiersin.org/journals/env...

❌ Error 1 (level: EASY)

Solid waste has mean (0.624) > max (0.525)

❌ Error 2 (level: MEDIUM)

Solid waste and fiscal revenue have SD > range/2

0.53 > (0.525-0.1)/2 = 0.2125
0.926 > (1.2-0.024)/2 = 0.588

(in case you were wondering)

New paper: does Batman presence make researchers more likely to produce mathematically consistent Tables of Summary Statistics?

next up we have one coefficient that looks off by a factor of 10.

god knows how that happened. but the lesson, as ever, is ABP (Always Be Plotting)

plot your raw data. plot your summary statistics. plot your model coefficients. plot your enemy's downfall. plot your residuals.

other sleuths: *using AI to detect pixel-by-pixel similarities indicating image duplication*

me: ... max minus min

this example is unusual because there are a few breadcrumbs indicating what went wrong...

* Means got duplicated in SD column
* SD values appear in Min column (or at least, these values = sqrt(var))