Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Hypothesis Testing In Wildlife Science, Douglas H. Johnson

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Statistical testing of null hypotheses recently has come under fire in wildlife sciences (Cherry 1998; Johnson 1999; Anderson et al. 2000, 2001). In response to this criticism, Robinson and Wainer (2002) provide some further background information on significance testing; they argue that significance testing in fact is useful in certain situations. I counter by suggesting that such situations rarely arise in our field. I agree with Robinson and Wainer that replication is the key to scientific advancement. I believe, however, that significance testing and resulting P-values frequently are confused with issues of replication. Any single study can yield a P-value, …