Earlier this year, neuroscience was shaken by the publication in PNAS of Cluster failure: Why fMRI inferences for spatial extent have inflated false-positive rates. In this paper, Anders Eklund, Thomas E. Nichols and Hans Knutsson reported that commonly used software for analysing fMRI data produces many false-positives.

But now, Boston College neuroscientist Scott D. Slotnick has criticized Eklund et al.’s alarming conclusions in a new piece in Cognitive Neuroscience.

In my view,