? Why "Burden of proof" ?

[Sean Crist]

On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> But surely taking as a null hypothesis a formulation like: "No languages are
> related", which has been disconfirmed --- *repeatedly*, is useless?

For any two languages, the null hypothesis is that those languages aren't
related.  This is not the same as what you just said.

The hypothesis as you've phrased it would be the null hypothesis for the
question, "Are any languages related?"  That question was answered two
centuries ago.  In that sense, yes, the hypothesis as you've phrased it is
of little use.

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