He repeated the null hypothesis.
He stated the documents that contain the evidence that convinced him.
He is under no obligation to prove the null.
He is under no obligation to convince you of the null.
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Can you explain to me what a null hypothesis is in historical inquiry? People bring it up a lot, but it makes no sense to me. Here is how I see it:
A null hypothesis makes sense in controlled experiments. In them, there is always a possibility that any results are not due to a real effect, but due to chance. For example, your experimental medication doesn't work, but by chance you put all the healthiest people in the experimental group and all the sickest people in the control group. It looks like your medication works even though it doesn't. To rule this out, we demand that experimental results are strong enough to reject the
null hypothesis that there is no effect. In the absence of strong evidence otherwise, we stick to the null hypothesis.
I have no idea how to translate any of this to the study of history, or to JFK in particular. We are trying to evaluate evidence about who killed JFK. In the absence of strong evidence implicating any particular suspect, there is no default assumption about who did it. It would be insane to say, "We find no strong evidence that LBJ did it, therefore we conclude that Oswald did it, even though we don't have any evidence specifically pointing to Oswald." We conclude Oswald did it because there is evidence he did it, not because it is the default conclusion. It isn't a null hypothesis; it is the reasonable conclusion based on the evidence.
I bring this up because calling something "the null hypothesis" implies one doesn't need to make a positive case for it, which is an absurd view to take about Oswald's guilt. Many posts seem to make this mistake, though, and we end up with posts essentially saying, "It's the null hypothesis. I don't have to say anything. I automatically win." Conspiracy theorists rightly respond that this is ridiculous, and the debate, such as it is, becomes worse.
If you don't want to waste time talking about vague, boring, long-debunked conspiracy claims, just say so. We don't need to pretend that null hypotheses about historical events exist.