Not Even Scientists Can Easily Explain P-values

Re:Not Even Scientists Can Easily Explain P-values by TeMPOraL on Wednesday November 25, 2015 @12:43PM (#10628391)

Observations do not imply truth. 0 and 1 are not probabilities, and in real life you can't prove something using observations in a logical sense. Real world runs on probabilities, not boolean logic.

Even if you look at the density of the metal throughout the coin, there's still a chance I've altered your device to report the coin is fair. Or a passing microsingularity decided to play games with the scanning beam. Or you're just imagining the whole thing.

That's not to say one should despair that the world is unknowable. One only has to get used to the fact that, in practice, "true" just means "extremely, extremely likely".

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Re:Not Even Scientists Can Easily Explain P-values by bweitzman on Wednesday November 25, 2015 @12:53PM (#10628439)

Sure, but there is a difference on the order of magnitudes between the probability that a fair coin will come up heads 100 times in a row and the probability that a microsingularity will come along and bias your results.

But yeah truth is tricky.

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