The null hypothesis: how science works, or at least how it should work

More educative entertainment from Tom Scott:

While I was trying to read a script to a camera in zero-g, the student researchers behind me were trying to prove their own ideas – or rather, to disprove their “null hypothesis”. Let’s talk about how science works – and have a look at one of the teams flying in that plane.

Publication bias, as mentioned in Tom Scott’s film, is a particular issue and cause of controversy in medical research. Hence it’s a subject which Ben Goldacre has written about several times.