[R] Proving (instead of rejecting) that two groups are actually equal

Dominik Marti dom at inik.ch
Wed Aug 10 12:22:05 CEST 2016


Hej R helpers

The standard in statistical hypothesis testing is to reject the null 
hypothesis that there is a difference between groups, i.e. to "prove" 
the alternative. However, failing to reject the null hypothesis does not 
prove it; its rejection just fails.

Now, as stated in the article "Unicorns do exist: a tutorial on 
"proving" the null hypothesis." by David L Streiner (Canadian Journal of 
Psychiatry, 48(11) 2003), we can define the null hypothesis to be that 
there IS a difference (exceeding a certain value, delta), the 
alternative hypothesis being that there is none (or it is at least 
smaller than delta). If the data now manages to reject the null 
hypothesis (of there being a difference exceeding delta), we can say 
with a certain probability that there is none.

Can I do this test in R? And if yes, any leads?

(In my actual dataset I deal with paired data.)

Best
    Dominik



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