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To the Editor.—The Finnish Twin Study of leisure-time activity and mortality by Dr Kujala and colleagues¹ has inherent strengths not conveyed by the authors' esoteric statistical analysis, replete with P values and confidence intervals but presenting few operative data. Unfortunately, during recent years medical journals have adopted the practice of presenting derivative data values buttressed by P values and confidence intervals, rather than presenting actual numerical study findings so that readers can discern data patterns relative to reputed determinants.² For example, footnotes in Tables 2 and 4 stating "Adjusted for smoking (pack-years and current smoking habit)" are not adequate substitutes for allowing readers "to see just how sausage is made"—how deaths are distributed in bivariate tables. No sound physician/scientist would have confidence in values derived in a black box and buttressed by confidence intervals. In fact, statistical esoterica are ordinarily aimed at suspending the critical faculty of readers.^3-4 For . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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