RUTGERS UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS AND BIOSTATISTICS www.stat.rutgers.edu
Seminar θSpeaker: Professor Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech
Title: Probing with Severity: Beyond Bayesian Probabilism and Frequentist Performance
Time: 3:20 – 4:20pm, Wednesday, December 3, 2014 Place: 552 Hill Center
ABSTRACT
Probing with Severity: Beyond Bayesian Probabilism and Frequentist Performance Getting beyond today’s most pressing controversies revolving around statistical methods, I argue, requires scrutinizing their underlying statistical philosophies.Two main philosophies about the roles of probability in statistical inference are probabilism and performance (in the long-run). The first assumes that we need a method of assigning probabilities to hypotheses; the second assumes that the main function of statistical method is to control long-run performance. I offer a third goal: controlling and evaluating the probativeness of methods. An inductive inference, in this conception, takes the form of inferring hypotheses to the extent that they have been well or severely tested. A report of poorly tested claims must also be part of an adequate inference. I develop a statistical philosophy in which error probabilities of methods may be used to evaluate and control the stringency or severity of tests. I then show how the “severe testing” philosophy clarifies and avoids familiar criticisms and abuses of significance tests and cognate methods (e.g., confidence intervals). Severity may be threatened in three main ways: fallacies of statistical tests, unwarranted links between statistical and substantive claims, and violations of model assumptions.
Please join us in conversation with Philip Kitcher as we discuss themes from his new book, Life after Faith. While atheist writers gleefully cataloguing religion’s intellectual and moral vices have been numerous of late, too few have treated their target with the respect it deserves for successfully providing emotional comfort and social cohesion. Kitcher changes that, acknowledging religion’s virtues even as he constructs a secular humanist alternative to replace it.
Talk with him about this on Monday, February 23, 2015 at 7:00pm at Book Culture, 536 West 112th St., NY, NY (212) 865-1588
The Philosophy of Statistics: Bayesianism, Frequentism and the Nature of Inference,
2015 APS Annual Convention
Saturday, May 23 2:00 PM- 3:50 PM in Wilder
(Marriott Marquis 1535 B’way)
Presenters:
Andrew Gelman, Professor of Statistics & Political Science, Columbia University
Stephen Senn, Head of Competence Center for Methodology and Statistics (CCMS) Luxembourg Institute of Health
D.G. Mayo, Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Tech
Richard Morey, Session Chair & Discussant, Senior Lecturer School of Psychology, Cardiff University
Nearly everyone agrees that knowledge is gained through diligent study and investigation, but there is far greater ambiguity when it comes to the meaning of wisdom and how it is acquired. What is wisdom, and how can it be attained? Is there an empirical relationship between wisdom and the cultivation of character, as Aristotle and others have argued? Is the development of virtue and the fulfillment of our innate potential a prerequisite to living the good life? Philosopher of science Philip Kitcher joins Humean philosopher Valerie Tiberius and distinguished psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett to explore the role of wisdom in the interplay between positive emotions, virtues, and character.
*Reception to follow.
Featuring
Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD
University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University
Director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory
Philip Kitcher, PhD
John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University
Author of “The Ethical Project”
Valerie Tiberius, PhD
Chair and Professor of Philosophy at University of Minnesota
Author of “The Reflective Life: Living Wisely With Our Limits”
Moderator
Steve Paulson
Executive Producer, Wisconsin Public Radio’s nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge
Registration — Individual Lecture Prices
Member | $5 |
Member (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow) | $5 |
Nonmember | $15 |
Nonmember (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow) | $7 |
Metro Area Philosophy of Science Presents:
Elizabeth Miller (Yale),
Title: TBA.
Jonathan Bain (NYU)
What Explains the Spin-Statistics Connection?
The spin-statistics connection plays an essential role in explanations of non-relativistic phenomena associated with both field-theoretic and non-field-theoretic systems (for instance, it explains the electronic structure of solids and the behavior of Einstein-Bose condensates and superconductors). However, it is only derivable within the context of relativistic quantum field theory (RQFT) in the form of the Spin-Statistics Theorem; and moreover, there are multiple, mutually incompatible ways of deriving it. This essay attempts to determine the sense in which the spin-statistics connection can be said to be an essential property in RQFT, and how it is that an essential property of one type of theory can figure into fundamental explanations offered by other, inherently distinct theories.
‘Philosophy begins in wonder. And at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. There have been added, however, some grasp of the immensity of things, some purification of emotion by understanding. Yet there is a danger in such reflections. An immediate good is apt to be thought of in a degenerate form of a passive enjoyment. Existence (life) is activity ever merging into the future. The aim of philosophical understanding is the aim of piercing the blindness of activity in respect to its transcendent functions.’ (A.N. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, Capricorn Books, New York, 1938, 232).
Please read Anthony O’Hear work titled Philosophy – Wisdom or Technique? starting on page 351. Please click here.
Please remember to bring $3 for the Setauket Neighborhood House.