Every 17 years, swarms of cicadas emerge from the ground in the eastern United S

Question

Every 17 years, swarms of cicadas emerge from the ground in the eastern United States, live for about six weeks, and then die. There are so many cicadas that their dead bodies can serve as fertilizer. In an experiment, a researcher added cicadas under some plants in a natural plot of bellflowers on the forest floor, leaving other plants undisturbed. “In this experiment, cicada-supplemented bellflowers from a natural field population produced foliage with 12% greater nitrogen content relative to controls (P = 0.031).”13 A colleague who knows no statistics says that an increase of 12% isn’t a lot—maybe it’s just an accident due to natural variation among the plants. Explain in simple language how “P = 0.031” answers this objection.

Explanation / Answer

I will tell him that if he is correct that this simply happened by chance, then that chance would just be around 3% [or, 3 for every 100], which is small. Hence, it is more practical to belive that it didn't happen by chance, but rather, because it really increased by 12%.

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