Question

An entomologist writes an article in a scientific journal which claims that fewer than 14 in ten thousand male fireflies are unable to produce light due to a genetic mutation. Assuming that a hypothesis test of the claim has been conducted and that the conclusion is to reject the null hypothesis, state the conclusion in nontechnical terms.

Answer 1

Rejecting the null hypothesis indicates strong statistical evidence in support of the claim that fewer than 14 in ten thousand male fireflies have a light-producing genetic mutation.

Step-by-step explanation:

When an entomologist claims that fewer than 14 in ten thousand male fireflies are unable to produce light due to a genetic mutation and a hypothesis test is conducted, rejecting the null hypothesis implies that there is sufficient statistical evidence to support the claim.

In other words, the data collected in the study convincingly show that the true proportion of male fireflies with the genetic mutation causing them not to produce light is indeed less than 14 in ten thousand.

This conclusion is based on the observed data and the result from the statistical test, not on absolute certainty, since hypothesis testing deals with probabilities and not definitive proofs.