Race and IQs

[FatAndFaithless]

No, Anom has it right.  The null hypothesis is just the default counterpoint to any assertion/hypothesis being tested.  To prove an assertion/hypothesis you would have to show the null hypothesis to be incorrect.  

"Smoking causes cancer" ->  a claim.  The null hypothesis would be "Smoking does NOT cause cancer."  Through all the medical and scientific testing we've done, the null hypothesis was proven incorrect, and we know that smoking is a cause of cancer.

Using your example, isn't "There is a difference in IQ between races" a claim?  And the null is "There is no difference in IQ between races" ?

Yup.  To prove the assertion "there is a difference in IQ between races" correct, they would have to prove the null hypothesis "there is no difference in IQ between races" false.

And if someone wanted to prove the assertion "there is no difference in IQ between races" correct, they would have to prove the null hypothesis "there IS a difference in IQ between races" false.

With either claim, you (whoever is trying to prove one or the other) does the legwork, gathers the data, calculates all the statistics, etc.

And Jorm is correct - just because someone fails to disprove the null hypothesis doesn't mean the null hypothesis is necessarily true. It just means that their efforts have not yet disproved the null hypothesis. Like if some theist is unable to prove that god exists, that doesn't support the assertion that god does NOT exist, it just means that we lack proof for the existence of a god. Or, just because I cannot disprove the null hypothesis of a number of gumballs in a jar being even, doesn't mean that the number of gumballs is actually even - we just can't prove that it's odd, right now, with the available evidence/methods.