P-3

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p-3

Title text: Elsewhere, a species with 20 fingers per hand will believe pretty much anything is true.

Votey

Explanation

This explanation is either missing or incomplete.

In scientific research, a p-value is a threshold used to gauge how likely it is that the results found could have been due to random chance, and not due to the hypothesis being true. Using p=0.05 means there should be a 5% chance of the result being up to random chance. As the choice to use a number rounded to the nearest 5 was influenced by the commonly used decimal numeral system, which was influenced by humans having 5 fingers, it's implied that a 3-fingered alien would instead use p=0.03. (though that number is still in base 10, so it's unlikely they'd use that either) The title text implies the existence of a species using p=0.2, meaning a result had a 20% chance of occurring at random, which would lead to a lot of false positives, as in the scenario described in the title text.

Transcript

This transcript was generated by a bot: The text was scraped using AWS's Textract, which may have errors. Complete transcripts describe what happens in each panel — here are some good examples to get you started (1) (2).

[Describe panel here]

Earth scientists! We wish to share our wisdom with you! Do you have any questions about the nature of reality.?

How do you determine

P must be less than .03.

Truth?

You mean 05.

.03

Well shit.

Billions

OF SCIENTIFIC RETRACTED PAPERS live Scientists fear of single-ingered now alien race

Caption: This is a bonus comic brought to you by early buyers of my new book, a city on mars which you should buy because mary roach said it was good click the comic for more info.

Votey Transcript

This transcript was generated by a bot: The text was scraped using AWS's Textract, which may have errors. Complete transcripts describe what happens in each panel — here are some good examples to get you started (1) (2).

[Describe panel here]

See this is why dolphins never developed science.

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Discussion

0.083

I'm sure it was an intentional oversight, but 0.05 = (5/10^2) (decimal notation). Any parallel development in a species with two three-fingered hands would be (3/6^2) or 0.0833 (again, in our decimal notation, not heximal / senary). That would just be a bit too obscure to be a funny, though. (Grr... how do I add an overline / vinculum?). 195.78.54.61 10:24, 6 February 2024 (EST)