Perihelion Concentration of Comets I. Discussion of the Published Methods

The problem of (non)random distribution of points on the sphere is investigated. Published procedures for obtaining preferred direction and preferred plane for points on the sphere (in the sky) are discussed. It is shown that the published methods are incorrect, and, as a consequence, the results obtained by these methods cannot be considered to be significant. The correct methods and their applications on real data will be presented in other papers of this set of papers.