4 ms·
A null result, or the absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence. If you fake a null result, you’re not asserting anything other than you could not measure
by samtho 3y ago
A null result, or the absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence. If you fake a null result, you’re not asserting anything other than you could not measure and collect supporting data using your experiment to prove or disprove a hypothesis. It is difficult for someone doing replication to accuse you of ill-intent, as opposed to faked data that proves your point when anyone else can replicate your experiment and get totally different or even contradictory results.
- jampekka 3y agoYou still have to give out the statistics that show the null result. E.g. something with a high p-value. You are in fact "confirming the null hypothesis". They aren't any more difficult to replicate than results supporting "the alternative hypothesis". (The whole binary hypothesis system and culture is a mess though, but that's besides the point.)
- true_religion 3y agoThis is true. However, I think that no one will do the scut work necessary to find that a null result was faked, and even if they do since you the researcher got very little status out of it then it’s believable that you made a mistake, and didn’t falsify data.
- jampekka 3y agoProbably not, especially as null results are almost impossible to publish (which is mad).