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

From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-10-06 04:46:03

Topher Cooper wrote:
> 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.

Ah, very good point.

Thanks for raising this, looks like another editing session is needed, I'm 
fairly sure there will be other areas where we've got the terminology wrong 
as well.

John.