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Aug

2011

Skepticblog » Defending the Null Hypothesis

Null hypothesis papers are also much less likely to be submitted for publication in the first place. This results in what we call the file drawer effect. Most research, which tends to have non-startling results, gets filed away; while the small number of results that show unexpected result

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Hypothesis Null Science Falsifiability Publication Selection

Producing published evidence that shows the null hypothesis is often harder than it sounds.

Publication bias is a part of the problem. This is the tendency for research that rocks the boat to receive more attention than research that tells us nothing new or interesting. The overwhelming majority of actual research in the real world tells us nothing new or interesting, but you rarely see a cover story in Nature trumpeting “People Can’t Fly!”
Most research, which tends to have non-startling results, gets filed away; while the small number of results that show unexpected results tend to be submitted, published, and to receive more attention.
2 more annotation(s)...
- if you were to do a survey of all the published research on any given question, you’d likely get a skewed perspective; and it would be skewed away from the null hypothesis. Thus, on any given question, the real answer is probably closer to the null hypothesis than a thorough meta-analysis would show.
  
  The inevitable result is that to cite research that most accurately reflects what we’ve truly learned, it’s necessary to cherrypick. An unsavory thought, to be sure.
- The larger and better the study, the more likely it is to be accurate. Therefore, when we logically put all of this together, larger and better studies are more likely to show results nearer the null hypothesis.