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 7 pages. Please no plagiarism. However, what it actually does is tell the researcher is that, given that H0 is true, what is the probability of the data., which is not the same thing. However collective denial has allowed null NHST to continue unabated. The major flaw in NHST is that it makes the logical reasoning inherent to it probabilistic, not absolute. Cohen then demonstrates how the nil hypothesis is, anyway, fundamentally always false.

Cohen then suggests how psychology as a science can move forward. He states that there is no ‘magical alternative’ to NHST, but that rather psychologists should concentrate on better understanding and improving their data. He argues that approaches such as Exploratory Data Analysis offer a better way of understanding data, which avoids generalization. He also suggests that effect sizes be reported in terms of confidence limits. His overarching warning is that when using statistical techniques to help form well-founded theories, the researcher must approach them sensibly and with ‘informed judgment. He concludes that, given the problems associated with statistical induction, psychology, like other longer established sciences, should rely on replication.

Abelson refutes total criticism of NHST, arguing that critics which reject it due to the fact that the null hypothesis is virtually always false are, in fact, exaggerating their claims. Although Abelson accepts that they can generate misleading conclusions, he maintains that NHST can be valuable in defending research from the criticism that its results can explain by random factors or that the direction of the mean difference has not been demonstrated convincingly enough. He accepts the flaws in the tests but claims that alternatives such as effect sizes or meta-analysis are also not perfect. He, therefore, suggests that alternative be used more often, but that null hypothesis significance tests should not be abandoned completely. Indeed, he argues it is more due to idiotic use that NHST produces meaningless results, rather than the NHST themselves.