Thread by @EveKeneinan

The very nature of statistics is to establish correlations between different factors. In statistics, the “null hypothesis” is the hypothesis that two factors have no correlation whatever, e.g. the full moon and SAT scores.

Against the background of the null hypothesis, one can then ascertain whether there is a non-null correlation between X and Y.

I’m not particularly interested in statistics, however. I bring it up because there is a widespread misuse of the term “null hypothesis.”

Anyone using “null hypothesis” in statistics is fine.

But you are more likely to see “null hypothesis” used differently.

Those who use it outside statistics hold the twin views that (1) there is some position on a given issue that does not need to be evidenced, but should simply be held by default, and (2) it is the position held by the one misusing the term “null hypothesis.”

This is of course a fallacy argument to ignorance, which has the form “my position is correct because it hasn’t been disproven”, which usually has the rider “to my subjective satisfaction, something controlled by my will, not my intellect.”

Most starkly “my position is true because I willfully will not admit any refutation of it; and since I won’t accept a refutation, I’m correct.”

The fallacy is clear: the truth of a position is not a function of the mind, not the intellect, which recognizes but dies not confer, truth; and certainly not the will — as if truth were a matter of the mind ‘forcing’ reality to conform to it.

To the argument from ignorance, “I’m right unless and until proven wrong,” is frequently added a fallacy of special pleading: “using an argument from ignorance fallacy is okay when I do it — because I used the term ‘null hypothesis’ (albeit incorrectly”.

Those who study the philosophy of science will be familiar with the Duhem-Quine Thesis (or Quine-Duhem Thesis, if you prefer). The Q-D Thesis notes there are no straightforward refutations (e.g. “falsifications”) of any scientific theory or hypothesis, due to UNDERDETERMINATION.

This isn’t a difficult point to grasp (although it has sweeping implications): “falsified” is an interpretation that can be reached only on the basis of a number of supporting and auxiliary hypotheses and propositions.

The observed orbit of Uranus could be interpreted as a straightforward “falsification” of Newtonian physics. It wasn’t.

As I’ve noted before, a conflict between an prediction and an observation can always be:

1 Prediction is wrong (because theory is wrong: falsification)
2 Observation is wrong
3 There’s a complicating factor X causing the mismatch

My point, and the point of the Duhem-Quine Thesis, is that it is nigh impossible to totally rule out an unknown, complicating X factor.

In the case of Uranus, it turned out the X factor was Neptune, which is what led to its discovery.

So it’s not surprising that a similar error with regard to Mercury led to positing the planet Vulcan to explain Mercury’s wonky perihelion. That didn’t end well: this time the problem was Newtonian theory.

Anyhow, a somewhat similar problem as the one raised by the Quine-Duhem Thesis holds in regard to more or less any belief or position: namely, what one regards as a “default” belief is and must be a function of other beliefs.

So, someone asserting such-and-such belief of his as a “default” is really saying (although not usually out loud) “in terms of the set of other beliefs I hold.”

Or “my belief is true by default, because that falls out of my set of beliefs, which is correct because my beliefs are correct, because each belief falls out of the set.”

Some people seem under the curious impression that nonbeing automatically accrues a default status. “Nothing not proven to exist should be accepted as existing,” they say, leaving us to wonder what proof the use to prove proof, on the default there is no such thing.

Gorgias once defended the theses that "Nothing exists" and "even if it did, no one could know it."

I believe I see a further demonstration of the second point there.

"No one is justified in believing anything exists that has not been proven to exist. So, no one is justified in believing proof exists, until proof has been proven to exist. Since proof is in doubt, a proof that proof exists cannot be given ... "

"Since proof cannot be proven to exist, no one is justified in believing any proof exists. And so. there is no proof that anything exists, and by our starting point, no one is justified in believing anything exists without proof, no one is justified in believing anything exists."

Sophistry is fun.

Except when people take in seriously, which they do, not because they deeply believe the sophistical arguments, but usually because sophistry is the only means they have to pseudo-justify their beliefs. So they will accept it.

Anyway, anyone claiming, not that they are right per se, but that their belief is "the default belief" — or more commonly, and wrongly, the "null hypothesis" — is simply making empty assertion.

It would be reasonable to ask (1) why one should believe there are "default beliefs" at all, and (2) why this one is one for everyone, if it is.

They think they have made their belief impregnable by putting it in a position where they do not have to make a case for it.

But all they've done is put themselves in a position where they must make a case that their pet belief is exempt from having to have a case made for it...