“Statistically significant results” mean that there’s a 5% chance that results are wrong
Hmm. Assuming the experiment was run correctly, it means there’s a less than 5% chance that data this extreme would have been generated if the null hypothesis—that nothing interesting was happening—were true. The actual chance can be specified as e.g. 1%, 0.01%, or whatever.
Also, assuming everything was done correctly, it’s really the conclusions drawn from the results, rather than the results themselves, that might be wrong...
Hmm. Assuming the experiment was run correctly, it means there’s a less than 5% chance that data this extreme would have been generated if the null hypothesis—that nothing interesting was happening—were true. The actual chance can be specified as e.g. 1%, 0.01%, or whatever.
Also, assuming everything was done correctly, it’s really the conclusions drawn from the results, rather than the results themselves, that might be wrong...
The point is that this chance, no matter how small, is in addition to massive number of things that could have gone wrong.
And with negative results you don’t even have that.