2 ms·

Why not? I mean I could go find examples of Ronald Fisher (guy who popularized them) doing this if you want...

• dahart 8y ago
  You seem to know plenty about it to me, along with the history... probably more than I do, so perhaps I’m not helping. Given that, your original question feels odd. Thinking about what kind of science one might do around evolution, the neutral theory seems like a very natural thing to test against. It seems useful to disprove that a hypothesis might be part of a separate or competing theory. If you wanted to test that something is caused by natural selection, it would be very handy to show that it can’t be random mutation or genetic drift. Anyway, you’re right, the null and alternative hypotheses can sometimes be the same, or to be pedantic, the null has to be at least the logical not of the alternative. But in practice, the alternative is not always nullable, and the null is usually answering a different question. If you know about Fisher, then you also know his approach isn’t all that popular today, and that there’s a long history of people arguing about the benefits of a confidence test that is separate from the alternative hypothesis, the thing you’re trying to prove.
  • nonbel 8y ago
    >"Thinking about what kind of science one might do around evolution, the neutral theory seems like a very natural thing to test against. It seems useful to disprove that a hypothesis might be part of a separate or competing theory." Apparently this "neutral theory" was compared to some data (ie tested) and found to be lacking in its current form. I didnt check the details so cant comment further on that. However, I don't see how that says anything about which competing theory should be adopted.