Table 1.

The analogy between judge’s decisions and statistical tests

Judge’s decision	Statistical test
Innocence: The defendant did not commit crime	Null hypothesis: No association between Tamiflu and psychotic manifestations
Guilt: The defendant did commit the crime	Alternative hypothesis: There is association between Tamiflu and psychosis
Standard for rejecting innocence: Beyond a reasonable doubt	Standard for rejecting null hypothesis: Level of statistical significance (à)
Correct judgment: Convict a criminal	Correct inference: Conclude that there is an association when one does exist in the population
Correct judgment: Acquit an innocent person	Correct inference: Conclude that there is no association between Tamiflu and psychosis when one does not exist
Incorrect judgment: Convict an innocent person.	Incorrect inference (Type I error): Conclude that there is an association when there actually is none
Incorrect judgment: Acquit a criminal	Incorrect inference (Type II error): Conclude that there is no association when there actually is one