In statistics, the terms Type I error (also, α error, or false positive) and type II error (β error, or a false negative) are used to describe possible errors made in a statistical decision process. In 1928, Jerzy Neyman (1894-1981) and Egon Pearson (1895-1980), both eminent statisticians, discussed the problems associated with "deciding whether or not a particular sample may be judged as likely to have been randomly drawn from a certain population" (1928/1967, p.1): and identified "two sources of error", namely:
In 1930, they elaborated on these two sources of error, remarking that "in testing hypotheses two considerations must be kept in view, (1) we must be able to reduce the chance of rejecting a true hypothesis to as low a value as desired; (2) the test must be so devised that it will reject the hypothesis tested when it is likely to be false"[1]
In layman's language . . .
TRYING to put it in language for all the Jr High level debunkers and naysayers out there . . .
A TYPE I ERROR = SAYING SOMETHING !!!IS!!! THERE then NOTHING is there.
A TYPE II ERROR = saying NOTHING IS THERE
WHEN actually SOMETHING IS THERE!
It turns out to be the nature of REALITY that one CANNOT run too far from the risk of a TYPE I ERROR without running headlong into the virtual certainty of becoming victim of a TYPE II ERROR.
Amazingly, virtually all the naysayers ever plaguing a UFO thread seem to be either thoroughly ignorant of these facts--OR--to mindlessly pretend they don't apply to THEIR death grips on TYPE II ERROR probabilities.
What BALDERDASH! What unmitigated hypocrisy! What cluelessness!
However, it does afford the rest of us some amusement at their lack of personal insight alongside rank willful blindness.
Oh please ASLANs, get off your high horse. Your problem is that you see yourself as having escaped the limitations of modern scientific rationalism, when in fact you are still enslaved by the limitations of the jargon of modern science. In all seriousness, you need to start over, begin with the human things, wrestle with human opinion and a better understanding of human desire, and thereby find a more complete avenue to reality.
Except in some eastern Asian nations, modern science is not taken that seriously anymore. Therefore, your battle against it is moot.
Anyway, back to the point: what does any of this have to do with the two guys in NJ who are now under arrest?