RE: "God doesn't Exist"- Claim or Conclusion
December 22, 2016 at 1:31 pm
(This post was last modified: December 22, 2016 at 1:48 pm by Mister Agenda.)
It's impossible to know rabbit populations aren't somehow connected to hemline trends either. You're special pleading that the null hypothesis should be different in this particular case...which is what special pleading is without very good justification for the different treatment.
The null hypothesis is vital to science. It gives us a procedure. Someone says 'maybe voltage fairies push electrons through wires'. Someone else says, 'so, the null hypothesis would be 'voltage faeries don't exist'. Now you've got the first step for the original hypothesis: demonstrate that voltage fairies exist. If you succeed, the new null hypothesis is 'voltage fairies don't push electrons through wires', and the new task is to show that they do.
In no case would the null hypothesis be 'we can't know' on the question of whether something exists. It could be the null hypothesis to a hypothesis like 'we can know X', but not 'X exists'. Whatever X is, the null hypothesis for its existence will be that it doesn't.
There are probably cases where 'X is not the case' is not the null hypothesis for 'The case is X'; probably only for peculiar formulations of 'The case is X', like 'The case is that the Greek gods aren't really real' is kind of already the null hypothesis, you can't correctly formulate the null hypothesis to that statement as 'the Greek gods really are real'. It's not the null hypothesis because it's 'not null'.
The null hypothesis is vital to science. It gives us a procedure. Someone says 'maybe voltage fairies push electrons through wires'. Someone else says, 'so, the null hypothesis would be 'voltage faeries don't exist'. Now you've got the first step for the original hypothesis: demonstrate that voltage fairies exist. If you succeed, the new null hypothesis is 'voltage fairies don't push electrons through wires', and the new task is to show that they do.
In no case would the null hypothesis be 'we can't know' on the question of whether something exists. It could be the null hypothesis to a hypothesis like 'we can know X', but not 'X exists'. Whatever X is, the null hypothesis for its existence will be that it doesn't.
There are probably cases where 'X is not the case' is not the null hypothesis for 'The case is X'; probably only for peculiar formulations of 'The case is X', like 'The case is that the Greek gods aren't really real' is kind of already the null hypothesis, you can't correctly formulate the null hypothesis to that statement as 'the Greek gods really are real'. It's not the null hypothesis because it's 'not null'.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
