Accepting and rejecting Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium

Question –
If I compare two different population samples and the p-value > 0.05 can I assume that samples came from same population (and can therefore be merged)?
What happen if p-value < 0.05, can I assume that populations came from different population?
That would not be good logic. Statistics is not as simple as that. What the statisticians say, when p is (very) small, is that there is (strong) evidence that the samples come from different populations; when p is not small, that there is little or no evidence that the samples come from different populations.

But coincidence is always a possible alternative explanation. After all, the definition of p=0.05 is that the observed difference DOES occur 5% of the time by chance when the null hypothesis (in our case, when the populations are the same) are true. Statistics never gives 100% conclusions.

So what you conclude should depend not merely on the p-value, but on what other information you have as well. If two labs both sampled people who claim to be Malay, and the p-value comparing them is not small, then we might as well combine the samples. If the p-value are small, then it might be a good idea to check the work and the methodology of collecting the data carefully. After careful checking we might decide that we did excellent science and the low p-value is therefore just coincidence, and the samples still can be combined.


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