“This is the kind of cure that kills the patient!”
is the line of Aris Spanos that I most remember from when I first heard him talk about testing assumptions of, and respecifying, statistical models in 1999. (The patient, of course, is the statistical model.) On finishing my book, EGEK 1996, I had been keen to fill its central gaps one of which was fleshing out a crucial piece of the error-statistical framework of learning from error: How to validate the assumptions of statistical models. But the whole problem turned out to be far more philosophically—not to mention technically—challenging than I imagined.I will try (in 3 short posts) to sketch a procedure that I think puts the entire process of model validation on a sound logical footing. Thanks to attending several of Spanos’ seminars (and his patient tutorials, for which I am very grateful), I was eventually able to reflect philosophically on aspects of his already well-worked out approach. (Synergies with the error statistical philosophy, of which this is a part, warrant a separate discussion.)
