andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-746 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: In my remarks on Arrow’s theorem (the weak form of Arrow’s Theorem is that any result can be published no more than five times. The strong form is that every result will be published five times), I meant no criticism of Bruno Frey, the author of the articles in question: I agree that it can be a contribution to publish in multiple places. Regarding the evaluation of contributions, it should be possible to evaluate research contributions and also evaluate communication. One problem is that communication is both under- and over-counted. It’s undercounted in that we mostly get credit for original ideas not for exposition; it’s overcounted in that we need communication skills to publish in the top journals. But I don’t think these two biases cancel out. The real reason I’m bringing this up, though, is because Arrow’s theorem happened to me recently and in interesting way. Here’s the story. Two years ago I was contacted by Harold Kincaid to write a chapter on Bayesian statistics
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1 In my remarks on Arrow’s theorem (the weak form of Arrow’s Theorem is that any result can be published no more than five times. [sent-1, score-0.257]
2 The strong form is that every result will be published five times), I meant no criticism of Bruno Frey, the author of the articles in question: I agree that it can be a contribution to publish in multiple places. [sent-2, score-0.176]
3 Regarding the evaluation of contributions, it should be possible to evaluate research contributions and also evaluate communication. [sent-3, score-0.311]
4 One problem is that communication is both under- and over-counted. [sent-4, score-0.1]
5 It’s undercounted in that we mostly get credit for original ideas not for exposition; it’s overcounted in that we need communication skills to publish in the top journals. [sent-5, score-0.281]
6 The real reason I’m bringing this up, though, is because Arrow’s theorem happened to me recently and in interesting way. [sent-7, score-0.165]
7 Two years ago I was contacted by Harold Kincaid to write a chapter on Bayesian statistics for the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. [sent-9, score-0.184]
8 I typically decline such requests because I don’t know that people often read handbooks anymore, but in this case I said yes, because for about 15 years I’d been wanting to write something on the philosophy of Bayesian inference but had never gotten around to collecting my thoughts on the topic. [sent-10, score-0.402]
9 While writing the article for Kincaid, I realized I’d like to reach a statistical audience also, so I enlisted the collaboration of Cosma Shalizi. [sent-11, score-0.206]
10 After quite a bit of effort, we wrote an article that was promptly rejected by a statistics journal. [sent-12, score-0.313]
11 (I liked the original a lot but the revision will be much better. [sent-14, score-0.153]
12 It overlaps with our journal article but we’re aiming for different audiences. [sent-16, score-0.206]
13 Then came opportunity #3: I was asked if I wanted to contribute something to an online symposium on the philosophy of statistics. [sent-17, score-0.549]
14 I took this as an opportunity to express my views as clearly and succinctly as possible. [sent-18, score-0.087]
15 Again, there’s overlap with the two previous papers but I felt that for some reason I was able to make my point more directly on this third try. [sent-19, score-0.11]
16 The symposium article is still under revision and I’ll post it when it’s done, but here’s how the first draft begins: Abstract The frequentist approach to statistics is associated with a deductivist philosophy of science that follows Popper’s doctrine of falsification. [sent-20, score-1.104]
17 In contrast, Bayesian inference is associated with inductive reasoning and the idea that a model can be dethroned by a competing mode but can never be falsified on its own. [sent-21, score-0.337]
18 From my experience using and developing Bayesian methods in social and environmental science, I have found model checking and falsification to be central in the modeling process. [sent-23, score-0.231]
19 The standard view of the philosophy of statistics, and its malign influence on statistical practice Statisticians can be roughly divided into two camps, each with a clear alignment of practice and philosophy. [sent-25, score-0.894]
20 The point of this article is that S is a bad idea and that one can be a better statistician–and a better philosopher–by picking and choosing among the two columns rather than simply choosing one. [sent-27, score-0.595]
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