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Experiments disproving the hypothesis are usually deeply unsettling, because in most cases, we have a pretty good reason for having that hypothesis to begin wit
by rflrob 9y ago
Experiments disproving the hypothesis are usually deeply unsettling, because in most cases, we have a pretty good reason for having that hypothesis to begin with---often lots of other experiments from the giants in your field. Those really smart guys (and, unfortunately it is mostly guys and not gals) are more impressive than you, J Random Gradstudent, so maybe you just screwed up the experiment. And even if the ruling hypothesis is wrong, then that means you're going to have to come up with a better one that fits both the old experiments and your new one, which is probably going to be hard to do if you want your new hypothesis to be simple and clear.
So a really clear rejection of the alternative hypothesis is great (which the article advocates for), but most of the time it's the more ambiguous non-rejection of the null (as you put it, actual failure), with a slim chance of bashing the old guard with your probably janky new hypothesis that explains it. They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown... and you don't want to be a Bozo.
- sverhagen 9y agoI'm an ESL speaker, but after some searching on the Internet, I've convinced myself that "guys" is generally accepted as a mixed gender group.
- skywhopper 9y agoAs an American speaker who grew up in the south and lives in the Midwest, that's not true in every case. When addressing a mixed group, "hey guys" can usually work. When talking about a group of unspecific people, it can work, but mostly because our cultural default is to assume male. When talking about a group of specific individuals "the guys in the office are smart" I would take that to be more specifically male. It's definitely not unambiguously mixed gender. In the case of the GP, the word was used to make a point about the ambiguity of the word, in a way that's very naturally idiomatic for a native English speaker, imo.
- lobotryas 9y agoAs another native speaker I can say that "guys" refers to a mixed gender group perfectly well. Saying that it implies a predominantly male group is more indicative of your personal life experiences or bias. Regarding GP, my only guess is that they were virtue signaling because they explicitly went out of their way to make that point. If they really wanted to avoid gendered nouns they could have written "folks", "people", or any number of similar words (kind of like how I'm doing here, by not assuming GP's gender).
- falsedan 9y ago'Folk' is fine, though try to work out how to drop 'comrade' into your vocab. In this particular case, the OP could have used 'researchers' and: 1. avoided putting off/distracting people by the use of gendered language; 2. been more precise.
- GavinMcG 9y agoAlso a native speaker, here. Seems to me that "guys" can refer to a group of men, or to a mixed-gender group, but not to a group of women. So while it's absolutely the case that it can refer to a mixed-gender group, using it that way is still problematic in that it emphasizes men's membership.
- lucasmullens 9y agoI use "guys" to refer to groups of women all the time. I don't think people who say "you guys" check and make sure it isn't 100% women before saying it.
- DanBC 9y agoIt depends where you are. Some people do strongly see it as not gender-neutral, and will loudly criticise you for using it even if you mean it in a gender-neutral way. Which is a shame, because while language is important there are probably other bits of language that are worse. Ireland has "hey lads" as a gender-neutral term which surprised me the first few times I heard it.
- atomicfiredoll 9y ago> Those really smart guys (and, unfortunately it is mostly guys and not gals) To be fair, I'm not sure why the original poster included the gender here instead of saying "smart people." The gender thing is a bit off topic. You are right that "guys" is often accepted ...at least as an informal second person plural. I get the impression this is because English just doesn't have a lot of great options here. Personally, I use "y'all." No matter the company you keep (with the possible exception of a group of CEOs) it works and doesn't make things awkward. That said, contractions like "Y'all'd've" start to get a bit messy and I generally stay away from those ...especially when writing.
- afarrell 9y agoWhat's wrong with the second person plural subjunctive past perfect?
- leppr 9y ago"How to derail a thread 101"
- Ngunyan 9y agoDon't disrespect the clowns.
- rhizome 9y agoThose really smart guys (and, unfortunately it is mostly guys and not gals) are more impressive than you, J Random Gradstudent Bigtime survivor bias. Am I wrong to think anything that shrinks the search space is good?
- JadeNB 9y ago> They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown... and you don't want to be a Bozo. P.S. Sez Carl Sagan (more or less).