.
I took a side trip to David Cox’s famous “weighing machine” example” a month ago, an example thought to have caused “a subtle earthquake” in foundations of statistics, because knew we’d be coming back to it at the end of December when we revisit the (strong) Likelihood Principle [SLP]. It’s been a decade since I published my Statistical Science article on this, Mayo (2014), which includes several commentators, but the issue is still mired in controversy. It’s generally dismissed as an annoying, mind-bending puzzle on which those in statistical foundations tend to hold absurdly strong opinions. Mostly it has been ignored. Yet I sense that 2025 is the year that people will return to it again, given some recent and soon to be published items. This post gives some background, and collects the essential links that you would need if you want to delve into it. Many readers know that each year I return to the issue on New Year’s Eve…. But that’s tomorrow.
By the way, this is not part of our lesurely tour of SIST. In fact, the argument is not even in SIST, although the SLP (or LP) arises a lot. But if you want to go off the beaten track with me to the SLP conundrum, here’s your opportunity. Continue reading
Error Statistics Philosophy 