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IMO, your proposed second option leaves ambiguity as to whether "significant" means "statistically significant" or "materially significant." The original option
by dbatten 7y ago
IMO, your proposed second option leaves ambiguity as to whether "significant" means "statistically significant" or "materially significant." The original option is clear on that point.
However, I would argue that the original text is also misleading, because if the result wasn't statistically significant, there's no evidence that rates for females increased. If anything, the first option could perhaps say "While suicide rates for females IN THE STUDY increased after the show's release, the increase was not statistically significant, so we have no evidence that it's a real effect."
- Majromax 7y ago> if the result wasn't statistically significant, there's no evidence that rates for females increased. That's not quite right. A conclusion of no statistical significance is not a conclusion that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis, but that there is insufficient evidence. The study failed to disprove the null hypothesis, but "failure to disprove" does not prove it to be true either. A more powerful study (with a larger sample size, or one that includes this incident in a meta-study of similar media events) might be able to use this data to support a positive conclusion.