Race and IQs

[FatAndFaithless]

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.

If you could humor me or if you're bored.    So can I summarize what you said as the following:

Null Hypothesis A= "There is no god"  They do a test to find a god and don't find anything so the null hypothesis is not disproved yet there could still be a god.

Null Hypothesis B = "There is a god"  (so what test do we do here?  Exactly the same as A?) we don't find a god and disprove the null.

My thinking was that in either scenario above I'll never have evidence that there is no god, I'll just continually have no evidence there is one.  And I'll never have evidence there is no relationship between IQ and race, I'll just continually have no evidence there is one.

Sorry, just got out of a meeting.

You're half right with the above.

If I'm trying to prove "There is a god," i have to prove that the statement "there is no god" is incorrect.  I do my tests (what those tests are, who knows.  leave that up to the theists).  If I don't end up with sufficient evidence to overturn the null hypothesis, then I have not confirmed my hypothesis.  But failing to disprove something is not the same as proving its opposite - so just because i can't prove a god exists at this moment with current methods, does NOT prove that "There is no god" is correct.

If I'm trying to prove "there is no god", i have to prove that the statement "there is a god" is incorrect.  Again, I have no idea how anyone would test this.  I would most likely end up with insufficient evidence to overturn the null hypothesis, and would not be able to prove that "there is a god" is incorrect.  But the same thing applies - just because I cannot prove there is no god doesn't mean that a god in fact exists.

I'll never have evidence that there is no god, I'll just continually have no evidence there is one

That's exactly right.  That's what atheism is.  You don't need to prove the opposite in order to reject a proposition.

Additionally, as Anmo mentioned there are statistics and probabilities involved in scientific claims that are hairy enough already - but throwing in supernatural claims and unfalsifiable assertions and magic and shit just makes it a million times worse.