Re: [boost] Ann: Statistical distributions / Mathematical Special Functions

From: Topher Cooper (topher_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-10-05 19:01:29

At 01:43 PM 10/4/2006, you wrote:
>Documentation and source downloads are available online at
>www.johnmaddock.co.uk/toolkit
>
>Regards,
>
>John Maddock.

I've just started reading the documentation but I want to point out 
that phrases like:

"we conclude that there is no significant difference, and accept the 
null hypothesis"

are likely to interfere with any statistician taking the package 
seriously (unjustly, I think -- the statistics may be weak but you've 
obviously worked hard at the numerics, which is what you are supplying).

One never, ever "accepts the null hypothesis."  One collects evidence 
and on that basis you either reject the null hypothesis or fail to 
reject it.  The point is that you don't ever really have evidence 
*for* the null hypothesis, only a lack of evidence against it.  It is 
quite a different thing to say "any difference in the means in this 
test is statistically insignificant" than to say "This test gives me 
an objective reason to believe that the difference in the means is 
exactly 0 (i.e., the null hypothesis) rather than, say, 1.0E-23 
(which is as much a part of the alternate hypothesis as is 
1.0E+23)".  Or in other words, the lack of evidence of a difference 
should not be taken as evidence of a lack of difference.

Topher