Author Archives: Mayo

The Barbie Wars: a philosophical deconstruction (i)

Posted on August 19, 2023 by Mayo

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I. My first post-pandemic movie. Wearing our Barbie shirts, purchased for the occasion, my friend Billie and I* went to see the movie Barbie the other day (open caption—a great idea!).[0] It was quite funny and clever, surprisingly introspective, and self-critical—even though I think it tried a tad bit too hard to remind us it was being surprisingly introspective and self-critical. As I watched, I had the impression the movie creators couldn’t decide on its identity and message. The central goal was to acknowledge criticisms of the Barbie image, notably, perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards, while at the same time disarming critics from pooh-poohing the overall mission of the movie: to reimagine Barbie in a positive, female “empowering”, light. (That term comes up a lot in the movie.) I think Barbie largely succeeds in making Barbie “cool again”. The question that interests me is: what is the image of empowerment being championed? Continue reading →

Categories: Barbie deconstruction | 8 Comments

Happy Birthday David Cox! Upcoming events August 8 & 9 at JSM 2023

Posted on July 15, 2023 by Mayo

Sir David Cox: 15, July 1924-18 January, 2022

Today is Sir David Cox’s birthday. He would have been 99 today. 2023 marks the first year that the David R. Cox Award in Foundations of Statistics will be given at the upcoming Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Toronto. For information on the Award, see this post. I’m excited to announce the inaugural winner, Nancy Reid! She will speak on “The Importance of Foundations in Statistical Science” Wednesday August 9:  10:30-12:20. The day before, Tuesday August 8: 9:35-9:50 am., I will give a brief talk on “Sir David Cox’s Statistical Philosophy“. The abstracts and locations for the two talks are below.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID COX! Continue reading →

Categories: Announcement, David R. Cox Foundations of Statistics Award, JSM 2023, Philosophy of Statistics | 4 Comments

A new generation of poster children of fraud in behavioral science: What I recommend (i)(ii)

Posted on July 4, 2023 by Mayo

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A fraudster’s “first time”:

I was alone in my tastefully furnished office at the University. . . . I opened the file with the data that I had entered and changed an unexpected 2 into a 4; then, a little further along, I changed a 3 into a 5. . . . When the results are just not quite what you’d so badly hoped for; when you know that that hope is based on a thorough analysis of the literature; . . . then, surely, you’re entitled to adjust the results just a little? . . . I looked at the array of data and made a few mouse clicks to tell the computer to run the statistical analyses. When I saw the results, the world had become logical again. (Stapel 2012/2014, p. 103)

This is Diederik Stapel, the famed and shamed researcher in behavioral psychology, reflecting on his “first time” – when he was “only” tampering with, and not yet wholly fabricating, data. Amazingly, while a fresh wave of researchers in Stapel’s field of “priming theory”[1] were tut-tutting Stapel’s exposed misconduct, some of them were busy manipulating their own data! Continue reading →

Categories: fraudbusting | 16 Comments

Sensitivity and Severity: Gardiner and Zaharatos (2022) (i)

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Mayo

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I’ve been reading an illuminating paper by Georgi Gardiner and Brian Zaharatos (Gardiner and Zaharatos, 2022; hereafter, G & Z), “The safe, the sensitive and the severely tested,” that forges links between contemporary epistemology and my severe testing account. It’s part of a collection published in Synthese on “Recent issues in Philosophy of Statistics”.  Gardiner and Zaharatos were among the 15 faculty who attended the 2019 summer seminar in philstat that I ran (with Aris Spanos). The authors courageously jump over some high hurdles separating the two projects (whether a palisade or a ha ha–see G & Z) and manage to bring them into close connection. The traditional epistemologist is largely focused on an analytic task of defining what is meant by knowledge (generally restricted to low-level perceptual claims, or claims about single events) whereas the severe tester is keen to articulate when scientific hypotheses are well or poorly warranted by data. Still, while severity grows out of statistical testing, I intend for the account to hold for any case of error-prone inference. So it should stand up to the examples with which one meets in the jungles of epistemology. For all of the examples I’ve seen so far, it does. I will admit, the epistemologists have storehouses of thorny examples, many of which I’ll come back to. This will be part 1 of two, possible even three, posts on the topic; revisions to this part will be indicated with ii, iii, etc., and no I haven’t used the chatbot or anything in writing this. Continue reading →

Categories: severity and sensitivity in epistemology | 2 Comments

David R. Cox Foundations of Statistics Award

Posted on May 29, 2023 by Mayo

Link to announcement on ASA website.

First Winner

Nancy Reid

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Nancy Reid
University of Toronto

For contributions to the foundations of statistics that significantly advanced the frontiers of statistics and for insight that transformed understanding of parametric statistical inference, Nancy Reid is the inaugural recipient of the David R. Cox Foundations of Statistics Award, presented by the American Statistical Association (ASA). Reid will formally receive the award and deliver a lecture at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Toronto in August. Continue reading →

Categories: Error Statistics | Leave a comment

Zoom: Comments & Questions

Posted on April 5, 2023 by Mayo

This post is open for comments and questions by all zoom and class attendees on the presentations by Aris Spanos, Richard Morey or Deborah Mayo regarding the last three sessions of Mayo’s Phil 6014 PhilStat Seminar.

Slides for Session 9 on Testing Assumptions of Statistical Models and Misspecification testing  (A. Spanos’ are here).

Slides from Session 10 on Bayes Factors (R. Morey’s slides can be found here).  R. Morey also has a blog post with more details on his view at this link.)

Mayo’s slides are up on the syllabus which is here.

Please use the “Leave a comment” link below.

Categories: phil6014 | 1 Comment

Where Are Fisher, Neyman, Pearson in 1919? Excursion 3 Tour I

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Mayo

We had a good group zooming into the first half of my seminar on March 1. I’m grateful to them for their interest. They (and anyone else who cares to) are invited to post questions for me, or other thoughts, using the comments to this post. Any new people who want to observe the March 15 session (on statistical debates in particle physics) should write to me. March 22 and 29 will have Aris Spanos and Richard Morey as guest speakers, respectively. The syllabus is here, and the questions/exercises over spring break are here.

The reading from this session is from Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars (Mayo, CUP, 2018)

D. Mayo Continue reading →

Categories: Phil 6014, SIST | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday R.A. Fisher: “Statistical methods and Scientific Induction” with replies by Neyman and E.S. Pearson

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Mayo

17 Feb 1890-29 July 1962

Today is R.A. Fisher’s birthday! I am reblogging what I call the “Triad”–an exchange between  Fisher, Neyman and Pearson (N-P) published 20 years after the Fisher-Neyman break-up. My seminar on PhilStat is studying these this week, so it’s timely. While my favorite is still the reply by E.S. Pearson, which alone should have shattered Fisher’s allegations that N-P “reinterpret” tests of significance as “some kind of acceptance procedure”, all three are chock full of gems for different reasons. They are short and worth rereading. Neyman’s article pulls back the cover on what is really behind Fisher’s over-the-top polemics, what with Russian 5-year plans and commercialism in the U.S. Not only is Fisher jealous that N-P tests came to overshadow “his” tests, he is furious at Neyman for driving home the fact that Fisher’s fiducial approach had been shown to be inconsistent (by others). The flaw is illustrated by Neyman in his portion of the triad. I discuss this briefly in my Philosophy of Science Association paper from a few months ago (slides are here*).Further details may be found in my book, SIST (2018) especially pp 388-392 linked to here. It speaks to a common fallacy seen every day in interpreting confidence intervals. As for Neyman’s “behaviorism”, Pearson’s last sentence is revealing.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY R.A. FISHER! Continue reading →

Categories: E.S. Pearson, Fisher, Neyman, phil/history of stat | Leave a comment

Popper, Falsification and Pseudoscience (Notes from my philstat seminar)

Posted on February 12, 2023 by Mayo

My Phil Stat seminar has been meeting for 4 weeks now, and we’re soon to experiment with a small group of outside participants zooming in (write to us, if you are interested in joining us). I’ve been so busy with the seminar that I haven’t blogged. Have you been following? All the materials are on a continually updated syllabus on this blog (SYLLABUS). We’re up to Excursion 2, Tour II.

Last week, we did something unusual: we read from Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations. I wanted to do this because scientists often appeal to distorted and unsophisticated accounts of Popper, especially in discussing falsification, and what demarcates good science from poor science. While I don’t think Popper made good on his most winning slogans, he gives us many seminal launching-off points for improved accounts of falsification, induction, corroboration, and demarcation. Continue reading →

Categories: highly probable vs highly probed, science vs pseudoscience, Statistical Inference as Severe Testing | 1 Comment

2023 Syllabus for Philosophy of Inductive-Statistical Inference

Posted on January 17, 2023 by Mayo

PHIL 6014 (crn: 20919): Spring 2023 

Philosophy of Inductive-Statistical Inference
(This is an IN-PERSON class*)
Wed 4:00-6:30 pm, McBryde 223
(Office hours: Tuesdays 3-4; Wednesdays 1:30-2:30)

Syllabus: Third Installment (PDF)
Syllabus Evaluation & Advice (enrolled members (PDF))

D. Mayo (2018) Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars (SIST) CUP, 2018: SIST (electronic and paper provided to those taking the class; proofs are at errorstatistics.com, see below).
Supplemental text: Hacking, I. (2001). An introduction to probability and inductive logic. Cambridge University Press.
Articles from the Captain’s Bibliography (links to new articles will be provided). 
Other useful information can be found on the SIST Abstracts & Keywords and this post with SIST Excerpts & Mementos)

Date Themes/readings
1. 1/18       Introduction to the Course:
How to tell what’s true about statistical inference

(1/18/23 SLIDES here)

Reading: Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars (SIST): Preface, Excursion 1 Tour I 1.1-1.3, 9-29

MISC: Souvenir A; SIST Abstracts & Keywords for all excursions and tours
2. 1/25
Q #2
 		 Error Probing Tools vs Comparative Evidence: Likelihood & Probability
What counts as cheating?
Intro to Logic: arguments validity & soundness

(1/25/23 SLIDES here)

Reading: SIST: Excursion 1 Tour II 1.4-1.5, 30-55
Session #2 Questions: (PDF)

MISC: NOTES on Excursion 1, SIST: Souvenirs B, C & D, Logic Primer (PDF)
3. 2/1
   Q #3
UPDATED		 Induction and Confirmation: PhilStat & Formal Epistemology
The Traditional Problem of Induction
Is Probability a Good Measure of Confirmation? Tacking Paradox

(2/1/23 SLIDES here)

Reading: SIST: Excursion 2, Tour I: 2.1-2.2, 59-74
Hacking “The Basic Rules of Probability” Hand Out (PDF)
UPDATED: Session #3 Questions: (PDF)

MISC: Excursion 2 Tour I Blurb & notes
4. 2/8 &
5. 2/15
Assign 1 2/15 		 Falsification, Science vs Pseudoscience, Induction
Statistical Crises of Replication in Psychology & other sciences
Popper, severity and novelty, array of problems and models
Fallacies of rejection, Duhem’s problem; solving induction now

(/2/8/23 SLIDES here)

Reading for 2/8: Popper, Ch 1 from Conjectures and Refutations up to p. 59. (PDF),
This class overlaps with the next, so if you have time read Excursion 2, Tour II: (p. 75-82); Exhibit vi. (p. 82); and p. 108

Session #4 Questions: (PDF)
MISC (2/8): Self-quiz on Popper for Fun! (PDF); Cartoon Guide to Statistics (Link to VT Library link is here)
———————-
Reading for 2/15: SIST: Excursion 2, Tour II: read sections that interest you from those not covered last week. You can choose the example in 2.6 (or one from your field) or the discussion of solving induction in 2.7. Optional for 2/15: Gelman & Loken (2014)

(2/15/23 SLIDES here)

ASSIGNMENT 1 (due 2/15) (PDF)
MISC (2/15): SIST Souvenirs (E), (F), (G), (H); Excursion 2 Tour II Blurb & notes
  Fisher Birthday: February 17: Celebration on 2/22
6. 2/22
 Q #6
&
7. 3/1

 

 Ingenious and Severe Tests: Fisher, Neyman-Pearson, Cox: Concepts of Tests


Reading for 2/22 from SIST: Excursion 3 Tour I: 3.1-3.3: read the sections that interest you, choosing to focus on the statistical tests, the history and philosophy of Fisher, Neiman and Pearson, the example of GTR. Choose 2 from the Triad (they’re very short): Fisher (1955), Pearson (1955), Neyman (1956)

(2/22/23 SLIDES here)

Session #6 Questions: (PDF)

Optional: The pathological Fisher (fiducial) and Neyman (performance) battle: SIST 388-391

——————————————-

Reading for 3/1: Sections from SIST skipped last week: Excursion 3 Tour I: (If time, look at the discussion of trade-offs 328-330) If interested in fiducial frequencies, see Neyman’s Performance and Fisher’s fiducial Section 5.8
Optional: Excursion 3 tour II: It’s the methods, stupid!

(3/1/23 SLIDES here)


MISC: Excursion 3 Tour I Blurb & notes; Souvenirs (I), (J), (K)
Morey app including Examples & Instructions (here);(Morey app) (SEV Apps)
SPRING BREAK Statistical Exercises While Sunning (March 4-12)

Sessions #11-14 are tentative;  please have a look at what’s in them so we can decide which to skip 
8. 3/15
Assign 2		 Deeper Concepts (2 parts): Stat in the Higg’s discovery, and Confidence intervals and their duality with tests

Reading (for first part): Excursion 3 Tour III, 3.8 Higgs Discovery (See the ASA 6 principles on P-values: Note 4, P. 216, and Live Exhibit (ix) p. 200: Souv. N p. 201
Reading (for second part): Excursion 3 Tour III, 3.7: pp. 189-195

Assignment 2 (PDF) due 3/17/23

(3/15/23 (revised) SLIDES here)

Misc. Excursion 3 Tour III blurb & notes
9. 3/22

Testing Assumptions of Statistical Models (Guest Speaker: Aris Spanos on misspecification testing in statistics)

Reading: Excursion 4 Tour IV 4.8

(3/22/23 A. Spanos’ SLIDES here)

Misc. Excursion 4 Tour IV blurb & notes

10. 3/29

 

Who’s Exaggerating what? Bayes factors and Bayes/Fisher Disagreement, Jeffreys-Lindley Paradox (Guest Speaker: Richard Morey on Bayes Factors)

Reading. Excursion 4 Tour II  and Excursion 6, Tour I: 395-423 (We will spend 2 weeks on these: Excursion 6 Tour I will be post zoom.)
“Redefine Statistical Significance” Benjamin et al. 2017. (PDF)

Session #10 Questions (PDF) 
Richard Morey’s slides (Link); (R. Morey blog post, which goes into more detail.)

Misc. Excursion 4 Tour II blurb & notes

11. 4/5

Mini essay
More on: Bayes factors and Bayes/Fisher Disagreement, Jeffreys-Lindley Paradox
Reading. Excursion 4 Tour II  and Excursion 6, Tour I: 395-423 (We are spending 2 weeks on these: Excursion 6 Tour I will be post zoom.)
Peek Ahead: 6.7 Farewell Keepsake: 436-444 
 
4/05/23 SLIDES (PDF)
 
Mini-essay (PDF)
12. 4/12

Biasing Selection Effects and Randomization
4/12/23 Slides (PDF)
Reading: Excursion 4 Tour III  
ASA Statement on P-values (link)
Optional: Mayo: P-values on Trial
13. 4/19

 

Power: Pre-data and Post-data

Reading: Excursion 5 Tour I

4/19/23 Slides (PDF)
Slides “Farewell Keepsake” (Sessions 14 & 15): (PDF)
Misc. Excursion 5 Tours I & II blurbs-notes

14. 4/26

Assign 3

 Positive Predictive Value and Probabilistic Instantiation

Controversies about inferring probabilities from frequencies (in law and epistemology)

Reading: Tail end of Excursion 5 Tour I: Exhibit (v), Souvenir X: SIN and SIR; Excursion 5 Tour II: Section 5.6 (excursion 5 Tour II); Farewell Keepsake: (Section 6.7 in Excursion 6 Tour II)

Optional:
(1)  C. Howson “Error Probabilities in Error” (1997);
(2) Mayo “Response to Howson and Laudan'” (1997) [only the portion responding to Howson];

4/26/23/Slides (PDF) 

We won’t consider the following, but I leave it here in case anyone wants to look at it:Gardiner and Zaharatos (2022), “The Safe, the Sensitive, and the Severely Tested”

ASSIGNMENT 3 (due 4/26) (PDF)
15. 5/3

Review of the main themes of the seminar
Current Reforms and Stat Activism: Practicing our skills on some recent  papers
5/3/23 Slides (PDF)
Reading: 6.6 (pp 432-6) Error Statistical Bayesians; one of the following: (they can also be your “new” reading for the final paper (Excursion 6 Tour II)

Optional: Gardiner and Zaharatos (2022), “The Safe, the Sensitive, and the Severely Tested”

5/3/23 Slides (PDF)
   FINAL PAPER: (PDF)
Categories: Announcement, new course | 5 Comments

I’m teaching a New Intro to PhilStat Course Starting Wednesday:

Posted on January 16, 2023 by Mayo

Ship StatInfasst (Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: SIST) will set sail on Wednesday January 18 when I begin a weekly seminar on the Philosophy of Inductive-statistical inference. I’m planning to write a new edition and/or companion to SIST (Mayo 2018, CUP), so it will be good to retrace the journey. I’m not requiring a statistics or philosophy background. All materials will be on this blog, and around halfway through there may be an opportunity to zoom, if there’s interest. Continue reading →

Categories: Announcement, new course | 2 Comments

The First 2023 Act of Stat Activist Watch: Statistics ‘for the people’

Posted on January 4, 2023 by Mayo

One of the central roles I proposed for “stat activists” (after our recent workshop, The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties) is to critically scrutinize mistaken claims about leading statistical methods–especially when such claims are put forward as permissible viewpoints to help “the people” assess methods in an unbiased manner. The first act of 2023 under this umbrella concerns an article put forward as “statistics for the people” in a journal of radiation oncology. We are talking here about recommendations for analyzing data for treating cancer!  Put forward as a fair-minded, or at least an informative, comparison of Bayesian vs frequentist methods, I find it to be little more than an advertisement for subjective Bayesian methods in favor of a caricature of frequentist error statistical methods. The journal’s “statistics for the people” section would benefit from a full-blown article on frequentist error statistical methods–not just the letter of ours they recently published–but I’m grateful to Chowdhry and other colleagues who joined me in this effort. You will find our letter below, followed by the authors’ response. You can also find a link to their original “statistics for the people” article in the references. Let me admit right off that my criticisms are a bit stronger than my co-authors. Continue reading →

Categories: stat activist watch 2023, statistical significance tests | 2 Comments

Midnight With Birnbaum: Happy New Year 2023!

Posted on December 31, 2022 by Mayo

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For the last three years, unlike the previous 10 years that I’ve been blogging, it was not feasible to actually revisit that spot in the road, looking to get into a strange-looking taxi, to head to “Midnight With Birnbaum”.  But this year I will, and I’m about to leave at 10pm. (The pic on the left is the only blurry image I have of the club I’m taken to.) My book Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars (CUP, 2018)  doesn’t include the argument from my article in Statistical Science (“On the Birnbaum Argument for the Strong Likelihood Principle”), but you can read it at that link along with commentaries by A. P. David, Michael Evans, Martin and Liu, D. A. S. Fraser, Jan Hannig, and Jan Bjornstad. David Cox, who very sadly did in January 2022, is the one who encouraged me to write and publish it. (The first David R. Cox Foundations of Statistics Prize will be awarded at the JSM 2023.) The (Strong) Likelihood Principle (LP or SLP) remains at the heart of many of the criticisms of Neyman-Pearson (N-P) statistics and of error statistics in general.  Continue reading →

Categories: Likelihood Principle, optional stopping, P-value | Leave a comment

THE STATISTICS WARS AND THEIR CASUALTIES VIDEOS & SLIDES FROM SESSIONS 3 & 4

Posted on December 20, 2022 by Mayo

Below are the videos and slides from the 7 talks from Session 3 and Session 4 of our workshop The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties held on December 1 & 8, 2022. Session 3 speakers were: Daniele Fanelli (London School of Economics and Political Science), Stephan Guttinger (University of Exeter), and David Hand (Imperial College London).  Session 4 speakers were: Jon Williamson (University of Kent),  Margherita Harris  (London School of Economics and Political Science), Aris Spanos (Virginia Tech), and Uri Simonsohn (Esade Ramon Llull University). Abstracts can be found here. In addition to the talks, you’ll find (1) a Recap of recaps at the beginning of Session 3 that provides a summary of Sessions 1 & 2, and (2) Mayo’s (5 minute) introduction to the final discussion: “Where do we go from here (Part ii)”at the end of Session 4.

The videos & slides from Sessions 1 & 2 can be found on this post.

Readers are welcome to use the comments section on the PhilStatWars.com workshop blog post here to make constructive comments or to ask questions of the speakers. If you’re asking a question, indicate to which speaker(s) it is directed. We will leave it to speakers to respond. Thank you! Continue reading →

Categories: Error Statistics | Leave a comment

Slides from PSA22 symposium: Multiplicity, Data-Dredging, and Error Control

Posted on December 11, 2022 by Mayo

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Below are slides from 4 of the talks given in our Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) session from last month: the PSA 22 Symposium: Multiplicity, Data-Dredging, and Error Control. It was held in Pittsburgh on November 13, 2022. I will write some reflections in the “comments” to this post. I invite your constructive comments there as well. Continue reading →

Categories: data dredging, multiplicity, PSA | 1 Comment

Final Session: The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties: 8 December, Session 4

Posted on December 3, 2022 by Mayo

Thursday, December 8 will be the Final Session (Session 4) of my workshop, The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties. There will be 4 new speakers. It’s not too late to register:

registration form

At the end of this post is “A recap of recaps”, the short video we showed at the beginning of Session 3 last week that summarizes the presentations from Sessions 1 & 2 back in September 22-23. Continue reading →

Categories: Announcement, Stistics Wars and Their Casualties Workshop | Leave a comment

SCHEDULE: The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties: 1 Dec & 8 Dec: Sessions 3 & 4

Posted on November 25, 2022 by Mayo

It’s not too late to register for Sessions #3 and #4 of our online Workshop. There will be 7 new (live) speakers and, for the the first time ever, the (short) movie; “The Recap of recaps” will be shown at the start of session #3. registration form

Categories: Announcement, Stistics Wars and Their Casualties Workshop | Leave a comment

Final Sessions: The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties: 1 December and 8 December

Posted on November 15, 2022 by Mayo

The Statistics Wars

and Their Casualties

1 December and 8 December 2022
Sessions #3 and #4

15:00-18:15 pm London Time/10:00am-1:15pm EST
ONLINE
(London School of Economics, CPNSS)
registration form

For slides and videos of Sessions #1 and #2: see the workshop page

1 December

Session 3 (Moderator: Daniël Lakens, Eindhoven University of Technology)

OPENING 

  • “What Happened So Far”: A medley (20 min) of recaps from Sessions 1 & 2: Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech), Richard Morey (Cardiff), Stephen Senn (Edinburgh), Daniël Lakens (Eindhoven), Christian Hennig (Bologna) & Yoav Benjamini (Tel Aviv).

SPEAKERS

  • Daniele Fanelli (London School of Economics and Political Science) The neglected importance of complexity in statistics and Metascience  (Abstract)
  • Stephan Guttinger (University of Exeter) What are questionable research practices? (Abstract)
  • David J. Hand (Imperial College, London) What’s the question? (Abstract)

DISCUSSIONS:

  • Closing Panel: “Where Should Stat Activists Go From Here (Part i)?”: Yoav Benjamini, Daniele Fanelli, Stephan Guttinger, David Hand, Christian Hennig, Daniël Lakens, Deborah Mayo, Richard Morey, Stephen Senn

8 December

Session 4 (Moderator: Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech)

SPEAKERS

  • Jon Williamson (University of Kent) Causal inference is not statistical inference (Abstract)
  • Margherita Harris (London School of Economics and Political Science) On Severity, the Weight of Evidence, and the Relationship Between the Two (Abstract)
  • Aris Spanos (Virginia Tech) Revisiting the Two Cultures in Statistical Modeling and Inference as they relate to the Statistics Wars and Their Potential Casualties (Abstract)
  • Uri Simonsohn (Esade Ramon Llull University) Mathematically Elegant Answers to Research Questions No One is Asking (meta-analysis, random effects models, and Bayes factors) (Abstract)

DISCUSSIONS;

  • Closing Panel: “Where Should Stat Activists Go From Here (Part ii)?”: Workshop Participants: Yoav Benjamini, Alexander Bird, Mark Burgman, Daniele Fanelli, Stephan Guttinger, David Hand, Margherita Harris, Christian Hennig, Daniël Lakens, Deborah Mayo, Richard Morey, Stephen Senn, Uri Simonsohn, Aris Spanos, Jon Williamson

**********************************************************************

  • DESCRIPTION: While the field of statistics has a long history of passionate foundational controversy, the last decade has, in many ways, been the most dramatic. Misuses of statistics, biasing selection effects, and high-powered methods of big-data analysis, have helped to make it easy to find impressive-looking but spurious results that fail to replicate. As the crisis of replication has spread beyond psychology and social sciences to biomedicine, genomics, machine learning and other fields, the need for critical appraisal of proposed reforms is growing. Many are welcome (transparency about data, eschewing mechanical uses of statistics); some are quite radical. The experts do not agree on the best ways to promote trustworthy results, and these disagreements often reflect philosophical battles–old and new– about the nature of inductive-statistical inference and the roles of probability in statistical inference and modeling. Intermingled in the controversies about evidence are competing social, political, and economic values. If statistical consumers are unaware of assumptions behind rival evidence-policy reforms, they cannot scrutinize the consequences that affect them. What is at stake is a critical standpoint that we may increasingly be in danger of losing. Critically reflecting on proposed reforms and changing standards requires insights from statisticians, philosophers of science, psychologists, journal editors, economists and practitioners from across the natural and social sciences. This workshop will bring together these interdisciplinary insights–from speakers as well as attendees.

Speakers/Panellists:

Sponsors/Affiliations:

  • The Foundation for the Study of Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (E.R.R.O.R.S.); Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), London School of Economics; Virginia Tech Department of Philosophy
  • Organizers: D. Mayo, R. Frigg and M. Harris
    Logistician     (chief logistics and contact person): Jean Miller
    Executive Planning Committee: Y. Benjamini, D. Hand, D. Lakens, S. Senn
Categories: Announcement, Stistics Wars and Their Casualties Workshop | Leave a comment

S. Senn: Lauding Lord (Guest Post)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Mayo

 

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Stephen Senn
Consultant Statistician
Edinburgh, Scotland

A Diet of Terms

A large university is interested in investigating the effects on the students of the diet provided in the university dining halls and any sex difference in these effects. Various types of data are gathered. In particular, the weight of each student at the time of his arrival in September and their weight the following June are recorded.(P304)

This is how Frederic Lord (1912-2000) introduced the paradox (1) that now bears his name. It is justly famous (or notorious). However, the addition of sex as a factor adds nothing to the essence of the paradox and (in my opinion) merely confuses the issue. Furthermore, studying the effect of diet needs some sort of control. Therefore, I shall consider the paradox in the purer form proposed by Wainer and Brown (2), which was subtly modified by Pearl and Mackenzie in The Book of Why (3) (See pp212-217). Continue reading →

Categories: Lord's paradox, S. Senn | 8 Comments

Multiplicity, Data-Dredging, and Error Control Symposium at PSA 2022: Mayo, Thornton, Glymour, Mayo-Wilson, Berger

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Mayo

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Some claim that no one attends Sunday morning (9am) sessions at the Philosophy of Science Association. But if you’re attending the PSA (in Pittsburgh), we hope you’ll falsify this supposition and come to hear us (Mayo, Thornton, Glymour, Mayo-Wilson, Berger) wrestle with some rival views on the trenchant problems of multiplicity, data-dredging, and error control. Coffee and donuts to all who show up.

Multiplicity, Data-Dredging, and Error Control
November 13, 9:00 – 11:45 AM
(link to symposium on PSA website)

Speakers: Continue reading →

Categories: Announcement, PSA | Leave a comment

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