We are like-minded! I also wrote about the Nature letter last week ( https://medium.com/@prosetech/the-real-science-crisis-d9a53fd8d635 ). I think it’s an example of “Goodheart’s law” — once we boil a complex analysis down to a single number (like a p-value threshold), then it’s going to be gamed, particularly when money is involved. There are plenty of ways to abuse math in a statistical analysis of research results, and the p-value threshold gives an excuse that seems to endorse otherwise badly formed studies.