At 01:16 PM 4/10/00 -0300, Robert Dawson wrote:
>both leave the listener wondering "why 0.5?" If the only answer is "well,
>it was a round number close enough to x bar [or "to my guesstimate before
>the experiment"] not to seem silly, but far enough away that I thought I
>could reject it." then the test is pointless.
>
> -Robert Dawson
YOU HAVE made my case perfectly! ... this is why the notion of hypothesis
testing is outmoded, no longer useful ... not worth the time we put into
teaching it ...
in the case above ... i would ask:
what is the population rho value ... THAT is the important inferential
issue ...
there is no reason why we would have to say: i wonder if it is .5 ... let's
TEST that, or ... i wonder if it is .7 ... let's TEST that ...
we can simply ask the question and try to get an answer to that ... and
there is no need to test a pre formulated null to get some sensible answer
to the question
no need for ANY null ... therefore no need for any hypothesis test
if 0 is absurd ... and, if i hypothesized .5 and you ask why .5??? then we
could have asked anywhere from 0 to .5 ... and they would have been just as
non functional ...
that's it ... hypothesis testing is non functional
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