Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Null Hypothesis Significance Testing.

ABSTRACT: Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) has been the subject of debate for decades and alternative approaches to data analysis have been proposed. This article addresses this debate from the perspective of scientific inquiry and inference. Inference is an inverse problem and application of statistical methods cannot reveal whether effects exist or whether they are empirically meaningful. Hence, raising conclusions from the outcomes of statistical analyses is subject to limitations. NHST has been criticized for its misuse and the misconstruction of its outcomes, also stressing its inability to meet expectations that it was never designed to fulfil. Ironically, alternatives to NHST are identical in these respects, something that has been overlooked in their presentation. Three of those a

SUBMITTER: Garcia-Perez MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5991793 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature