- #1
DaveC426913
Gold Member
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I was doing tech support at a healthcare conference over the weekend in which one of the speakers talked about stats 101 and interpreting research. In discussing it further with my wife this morning, I realized we've missed a piece of the puzzle.
My wife made an spurious example of cars heading into town. 100 cars drive along the QEW into Toronto. This is expected. If between 1 and 4 of those cars flies overhead, this is statistically significant and is worth investigating - we form a hypothesis. But if 5 or more care fly overhead, this means that it is not statistically significant, and is more likely to be part of the null hypothesis.
I have definitely oversimplified our discussion but that's the gist of it. I think we've got cause and effect backwards in terms of expected and observed behaviour. And I think we may have used a poor analogy.
My wife made an spurious example of cars heading into town. 100 cars drive along the QEW into Toronto. This is expected. If between 1 and 4 of those cars flies overhead, this is statistically significant and is worth investigating - we form a hypothesis. But if 5 or more care fly overhead, this means that it is not statistically significant, and is more likely to be part of the null hypothesis.
I have definitely oversimplified our discussion but that's the gist of it. I think we've got cause and effect backwards in terms of expected and observed behaviour. And I think we may have used a poor analogy.