Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
addClaim

Statistical Hypothesis Testing in Biology: A Contradiction in Terms

Authors: D, Jones; N, Matloff;

Statistical Hypothesis Testing in Biology: A Contradiction in Terms

Abstract

We respond to the preceding article by Perry (J. Econ. Entomol. 79: 1149–1155) concerning the subject of hypothesis testing and meaningful presentation of statistical analyses. We agree with Perry that indiscriminate use of statistical hypothesis testing should be discouraged. We also address and refute reasons often given to support continued emphasis on hypothesis testing. We conclude that biologists should take the responsibility for evaluating whether or not the magnitude of the difference between population parameters or treatment effects is biologically important, instead of merely testing for whether such a difference exists. We recommend that authors display the estimate of the difference and the confidence limit for this difference. These statistics, along with the standard error, contain the most information: their presentation provides the clearest and most meaningful format of the statistical analyses.

Related Organizations
Keywords

Research Design, Statistics as Topic

  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    selected citations
    These citations are derived from selected sources.
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    30
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Top 10%
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
30
Average
Top 10%
Average
Upload OA version
Are you the author of this publication? Upload your Open Access version to Zenodo!
It’s fast and easy, just two clicks!