| -----Original Message----- | From: boost-bounces@lists.boost.org | [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Topher Cooper | Sent: 06 October 2006 00:01 | To: boost@lists.boost.org | Subject: Re: [boost] Ann: Statistical distributions / | Mathematical Special Functions | | | | At 01:43 PM 10/4/2006, you wrote: | 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. It is really valuable to have professional statisticans input (correction!) like this because we do want acceptance by professionals. But we also have a much bigger audience/potential 'amateur' users who start off being massively repelled by statistics-speak words like 'null hypothesis': meeting the requirements of both at the same time is not so easy. And we'll try to put this right and expose to your scrutiny again. Paul --- Paul A Bristow Prizet Farmhouse, Kendal, Cumbria UK LA8 8AB +44 1539561830 & SMS, Mobile +44 7714 330204 & SMS pbristow@hetp.u-net.com