Brian Haig

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Here’s the final part of Brian Haig’s recent paper ‘What can psychology’s statistics reformers learn from the error-statistical perspective?’ in Methods in Psychology 2 (Nov. 2020). The full article, which is open access, is here. I will make some remarks in the comments.

5. The error-statistical perspective and the nature of science

Haig

As noted at the outset, the error-statistical perspective has made significant contributions to our philosophical understanding of the nature of science. These are achieved, in good part, by employing insights about the nature and place of statistical inference in experimental science. The achievements include deliberations on important philosophical topics, such as the demarcation of science from non-science, the underdetermination of theories by evidence, the nature of scientific progress, and the perplexities of inductive inference. In this article, I restrict my attention to two such topics: The process of falsification and the structure of modeling.

5.1. Falsificationism Continue reading →

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Here’s a picture of ripping open the first box of (rush) copies of Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars*, and here’s a continuation of Brian Haig’s recent paper ‘What can psychology’s statistics reformers learn from the error-statistical perspective?’ in Methods in Psychology 2 (Nov. 2020). Haig contrasts error statistics, the “new statistics”, and Bayesian statistics from the perspective of the statistics wars in psychology. The full article, which is open access, is here. I will make several points in the comments.

Haig

4. Bayesian statistics

Despite its early presence, and prominence, in the history of statistics, the Bayesian outlook has taken an age to assert itself in psychology. However, a cadre of methodologists has recently advocated the use of Bayesian statistical methods as a superior alternative to the messy frequentist practice that dominates psychology’s research landscape (e.g., Dienes, 2011; Kruschke and Liddell, 2018; Wagenmakers, 2007). These Bayesians criticize NHST, often advocate the use of Bayes factors for hypothesis testing, and rehearse a number of other well-known Bayesian objections to frequentist statistical practice. Continue reading →