the null hypothesis in the life sciences is almost always false—if taken literally— in designs that involve any sort of self-selection or correlation… - Paul E. Meehl
" "the null hypothesis in the life sciences is almost always false—if taken literally— in designs that involve any sort of self-selection or correlations found in the organisms as they come, that is, where perfect randomization of treatments by the experimenter does not exhaust the manipulations. Hence even “experimental” (rather than statistical or file data) research will exhibit this if interaction effects involving attributes of the persons are studied. Consequently, whether or not the null hypothesis is rejected is simply and solely a function of statistical power.
English
Collect this quote
About Paul E. Meehl
Paul Everett Meehl (3 January 1920—14 February 2003) was an American psychology professor. Known for his work on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, statistical vs. clinical prediction, and philosophy of science.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Paul Everett Meehl
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Paul E. Meehl
Sir Ronald has befuddled us, mesmerized us, and led us down the primrose path. I believe that the almost universal reliance on merely refuting the null hypothesis as the standard method for corroborating substantive theories in the soft areas is a terrible mistake, is basically unsound, poor scientific strategy, and one of the worst things that ever happened in the history of psychology.
It is simply a sad fact that in soft psychology theories rise and decline, come and go, more as a function of baffled boredom than anything else; and the enterprise shows a disturbing absence of that cumulative character that is so impressive in disciplines like astronomy, molecular biology, and genetics.
Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI
Add semantic quote search to your AI assistant via MCP. One command setup.
Isn’t the social scientist’s use of the null hypothesis simply the application of Popperian (or Bayesian) thinking in contexts in which probability plays such a big role? ... since an output variable such as adult IQ, or academic achievement, or effectiveness at communication, or whatever, will always, in the social sciences, be a function of a sizable but finite number of factors... Putting it crudely, if you have enough cases and your measures are not to-tally unreliable, the null hypothesis will always be falsified, regardless of the truth of the substantive theory.
Loading...