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Activity:Testing
a hypothesis
A hypothesis is a claim or assertion of truth. For
example, a couple of years ago, another professor went to a Stats conference
(exciting!) where one of the speakers claimed that Lincoln Memorial pennies
are not perfectly balanced.
The speaker asserted that if these coins are balanced on their edges and
the surface is jiggled slightly, then the coins are more likely to fall
heads up than tails. So
the hypothesis here is that the probability of heads (or proportion of
heads) is more than 0.50.
What
steps would you take to determine whether this claim is true?
1. What
evidence would you need to consider? How
would you obtain this evidence?
2. Would
you want to calculate any descriptive statistics to help in this determination? Which
one(s)?
3. What
kind of evidence would be needed to demonstrate that the speaker’s claim
is true? What would you
need to see in order to say that you have convincing evidence of the speaker’s
claim?
4. OK.
Now give your rationale for your answer to#3. Why
would you find certain evidence to be convincing and other evidence to
be lacking?