most scientific papers are wrong?

crashfrog writes:Samples of populations, analyzed for certain traits. So long as we're able to conclude that the distribution of the sample has a 5% chance or better of being a random deviation from the "expected" distribution of the population, we conclude that it is.Like, if we have a sample of people and we're looking at their height, and we find that there's a 5% chance or greater that the difference between the distribution in our sample and the distribution in the whole is due to nothing more than chance, then we conclude that the sample we have is truly random, and not the result of some kind of selection for heights.Again, unless I'm way off base, here, we take anything over 5% confidence. Yeah, I was surprised, too.

Percy writes:I used to do this stuff a little a couple decades ago, and without digging out my old equations my vague recollection, give or take a few but this probably isn't too far off, is that a random sample size of around 1700 is sufficient to have a degree of assurance of 95%. Surprisingly, this sample size is not a function of the size of the full population from which the random set is selected. In other words, whether you're sampling a population of a million or a billion, around 1700 is all you need for 95% assurance if your sample is randomly selected.

inkorrekt writes:Both opposing concepts [evolution and Intelligent Design] cannot be true. Only one has to be True.