As you probably remember from my frequent recent mentions, I've been working my way through a book on probability, statistics, and the philosophy of science, STATISTICAL INFERENCE AS SEVERE TESTING, by Deborah Mayo. This will be my last quote from that book. From p. 367, "It is supposed in many fields of social and biological science that nearly everything is related to everything: 'all nulls are false.' Meehl dubbed this the crud factor." What follows is a description of a psychology survey done by the University of Minnesota in 1966 in which all of the following showed some degree of (often low though statistically significant) correlation -- attitudes toward school, leisure activities, educational plans, parents' occupations, siblings, birth order, family attitudes. religious preferences, MCAT scores, etc. Every null hypothesis is false. Mayo tells us that Meehl here is also eager to explain that this is not what statisticians call a "Type 1 error...
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According to its admirers, something called "statement analysis" is the new breakthrough in forensic science. It is also sometimes called SCAN (scientific content analysis). It will replace the polygraph in law enforcement. Maury Povich will start using it on his show. What is this miracle? http://skepdic.com/statementanalysis.html Statement (or content) analysis is the notion that there are linguistic give-aways to whether someone is telling the truth. And well, yes, as a matter of common sense and interrogatory experience this is true, the give-aways work as a matter of generality. There is nothing scientific about them. After all, the usual give aways are well known to experienced frauds, who adapt their stories accordingly. "Don't add too much irrelevant detail to your story, they take that as suspicious," one con artist must commonly tell another. Here we stumble upon one of the great distinctions between the human and the physical sciences. ...