What are multiple hypothesis tests?

Ronan Conroy   (2005-08-10 14:28)  Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

A distinction needs to be made between tests of multiple hypothesis and multiple tests of the same hypothesis. If a study of treatment effectiveness uses multiple endpoints, then finding a significant effect for any of the endpoints will lead to the conclusion that the treatment is effective. For this reason, protection against a false positive conclusion has to be based on keeping the family-wise error rate to 5%.

However, many studies simultaneously test several hypotheses. I see no reason why we should penalise these designs. Replication, or failure to replicate, seem to me to offer sufficient security in these situations.

Competing interests

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