[T]he impressive thing about the 1919 tests of Einstein ‘s theory of gravity] is the risk involved in a prediction of this kind. If observation shows that the predicted effect is definitely absent, then the theory is simply refuted. The theory is incompatible with certain possible results of observation—in fact with results which everybody before […]
“Philosophy majors rule” according to this recent article. We philosophers should be getting the word out. Admittedly, the type of people inclined to do well in philosophy are already likely to succeed in analytic areas. Coupled with the chuzpah of taking up an “outmoded and impractical” major like philosophy in the first place, innovative tendencies […]
Current day Popperians, the “critical rationalists”, espouse the following epistemic principle CR:[i] (CR) it is reasonable to adopt or believe a claim or theory P which best survives serious criticism. What justifies CR? To merely declare it is a reasonable epistemic principle without giving evidence that following it advances any epistemic goals is entirely unsatisfactory, […]
BOSTON COLLOQUIUM FOR PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 2013–2014 54th Annual Program Download the 54th Annual Program REVISITING THE FOUNDATIONS OF STATISTICS IN THE ERA OF BIG DATA: SCALING UP TO MEET THE CHALLENGE Cosponsored by the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at Boston University. Friday, February 21, 2014 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Photonics Center, 9th Floor Colloquium […]
A paper of mine on “double-counting” and novel evidence just came out: ”Some surprising facts about (the problem of) surprising facts” in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2013.10.005 ABSTRACT: A common intuition about evidence is that if data x have been used to construct a hypothesis H, then x should not be used again in […]
Today is Erich Lehmann’s birthday. The last time I saw him was at the Second Lehmann conference in 2004, at which I organized a session on philosophical foundations of statistics (including David Freedman and D.R. Cox). I got to know Lehmann, Neyman’s first student, in 1997. One day, I received a bulging, six-page, handwritten letter […]
Memory Lane: reblog July 11, 2012 (+ updates at the end). I suppose[ed] this was somewhat of a joke from the ISBA, prompted by Dennis Lindley, but as I [now] accord the actual extent of jokiness to be only ~10%, I’m sharing it on the blog [i]. Lindley (according to O’Hagan) wonders why scientists require […]
Some weeks ago I discovered an error* in the upper severity bounds for the one-sided Normal test in section 5 of: “Statistical Science Meets Philosophy of Science Part 2″ SS & POS 2. The published article has been corrected. The error was in section 5.3, but I am blogging all of 5. (* μo was written [...]
As a visitor of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) at the London School of Economics and Political Science, I am leading 3 seminars in the department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method on Wednesdays from Nov. 28-Dec 12 on Contemporary Philosophy of Statistics under the PH500 rubric, Room: Lak 2.06 [...]
Here is section 5 of my new paper: “Statistical Science Meets Philosophy of Science Part 2: Shallow versus Deep Explorations” SS & POS 2. Sections 1 and 2 are in my last post.* 5. The Error-Statistical Philosophy I recommend moving away, once and for all, from the idea that frequentists must ‘sign up’ for either Neyman [...]
