6.7 “Accepting the Null”

(For the purposes of this class, and while you’re talking about testing after the class: the preferred language is to either (a) Reject the null hypothesis, or (b) Fail to reject the null hypothesis.

Acknowledging that we’re only 40% of the way through the course, you decide to hire a hungry, underpaid PhD student the School to conduct the experiment to evaluate this claim. They report back, no details about the test, but they do tell you, “We’re sure there’s no effect of .”

• Do you believe them?
• What, if any, reasons can you imagine not to believe this conclusion?