Concepts of statistical analysis

In many fields of research, null hypothesis, significance tests, and p values are the accepted way of assessing the certainty with which research results can be extrapolated beyond the sample studied. The inevitable difficulties of statistical inference mean that these probabilities can only be tentative, but probabilities are the natural way to express uncertainties, so, arguably, researchers using statistical methods have an obligation to estimate how probable their hypotheses are by the best available method. Otherwise, misinterpretations will fill the void.