The difference between "significant" and "not significant" is not itself statistically significant

Ben Jann writes,

I came across your paper on the difference between significant and non-significant results. My experience is that this misinterpretation is made in about every second talk I hear and also appears in a lot of published work.
Let me point you to an example in a prominent sociological journal. The references are:

Wu, Xiaogang and Yu Xie. 2003. "Does the Market Pay Off? Earnings Returns to Education in Urban China." American Sociological Review 68:425-42.

and the comment

Jann, Ben. 2005. "Earnings Returns to Education in Urban China: A Note on Testing Difference among Groups." American Sociological Review 70:860-864.

Jeremy Miles

And here's another example:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/329/7477/1259

Luckily, it's in the BMJ, which means that you can post a "rapid response" comment, which appears on the web page with the paper.

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science: The difference between "significant" and "not significant" is not itself statistically significant

The difference between "significant" and "not significant" is not itself statistically significant

Jeremy Miles