Enhanced Security Checks at Airports: Minimizing Time to Detection or Probability of Escape?

Abstract

A recent featured article in Significance on enhanced security checks at airports presented an argument that permitted a sampling probability to exceed one. The argument itself therefore cannot be valid, regardless of whether its intended conclusion is justifiable on other grounds. The fact that such an argument could pass the security check of a statistical publication reminds us of the grand challenge we still face: making principled statistical reasoning a routine vocabulary of our civilization. An attempt to correct the argument also demonstrates how oversights can inspire insights: we show that in a design-based context, the impact of prior can persist even if we have the resources to collect an infinite amount of data.