Statistical hypothesis testing and common misinterpretations: should we abandon p-value in forensic science applications?
Details
State: Public
Version: Author's accepted manuscript
Serval ID
serval:BIB_F11540330D0A
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Statistical hypothesis testing and common misinterpretations: should we abandon p-value in forensic science applications?
Journal
Forensic Science International
ISSN
1872-6283
ISSN-L
0379-0738
Publication state
Published
Issued date
02/2016
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
259
Pages
e32-e36
Language
english
Abstract
Many people regard the concept of hypothesis testing as fundamental to inferential statistics. Various schools of thought, in particular frequentist and Bayesian, have promoted radically different solutions for taking a decision about the plausibility of competing hypotheses.
Comprehensive philosophical comparisons about their advantages and drawbacks are widely available and continue to span over large debates in the literature. More recently, controversial discussion was initiated by an editorial decision of a scientific journal [1] to refuse any paper submitted for publication containing null hypothesis testing procedures. Since the large majority of papers published in forensic journals propose the evaluation of statistical evidence based on the so called p-values, it is of interest to expose the discussion of this journal's decision within the forensic science community. This paper aims to provide forensic science researchers with a primer on the main concepts and their implications for making informed methodological choices.
Comprehensive philosophical comparisons about their advantages and drawbacks are widely available and continue to span over large debates in the literature. More recently, controversial discussion was initiated by an editorial decision of a scientific journal [1] to refuse any paper submitted for publication containing null hypothesis testing procedures. Since the large majority of papers published in forensic journals propose the evaluation of statistical evidence based on the so called p-values, it is of interest to expose the discussion of this journal's decision within the forensic science community. This paper aims to provide forensic science researchers with a primer on the main concepts and their implications for making informed methodological choices.
Keywords
Frequentist approach, Bayesian methodology, Bayes' theorem, p-value, Degrees of belief, Hypothesis testing
Open Access
Yes
Create date
25/01/2016 8:20
Last modification date
20/08/2019 17:18