andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-1652 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Professor of business management Edwin Locke sent me an article : This paper argues that theory building in the social sciences, management and psychology included, should be inductive. It begins by critiquing contemporary philosophy of science, e.g., Popper’s falsifiability theory, his stress on deduction, and the hypothetico-deductive method. Next I present some history of the concept of induction in philosophy and of inductive theory building in the hard sciences (e.g., Aristotle, Bacon, Newton). This is followed by three examples of successful theory building by induction in psychology and management (Beck’s theory, Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, goal setting theory). The paper concludes with some suggested guidelines for successful theory building through induction and some new policies that journal editors might encourage. Like most social scientists (but maybe not most Bayesians ), I’m pretty much a Popperian myself, so I was interested to see someone taking such a
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1 Professor of business management Edwin Locke sent me an article : This paper argues that theory building in the social sciences, management and psychology included, should be inductive. [sent-1, score-1.302]
2 It begins by critiquing contemporary philosophy of science, e. [sent-2, score-0.425]
3 , Popper’s falsifiability theory, his stress on deduction, and the hypothetico-deductive method. [sent-4, score-0.229]
4 Next I present some history of the concept of induction in philosophy and of inductive theory building in the hard sciences (e. [sent-5, score-1.309]
5 This is followed by three examples of successful theory building by induction in psychology and management (Beck’s theory, Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, goal setting theory). [sent-8, score-1.333]
6 The paper concludes with some suggested guidelines for successful theory building through induction and some new policies that journal editors might encourage. [sent-9, score-1.441]
7 Like most social scientists (but maybe not most Bayesians ), I’m pretty much a Popperian myself, so I was interested to see someone taking such a strongly anti-Popper position. [sent-10, score-0.073]
8 My current thinking is that new models are derived from a language-like process. [sent-12, score-0.15]
9 I’ve noticed the same sort of “aha” process associated with scientific ideas, also occurs when I write sentences and reformulate them to say what I want them to say. [sent-14, score-0.485]
10 The fractal nature of scientific revolutions and all that. [sent-15, score-0.433]
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Introduction: Professor of business management Edwin Locke sent me an article : This paper argues that theory building in the social sciences, management and psychology included, should be inductive. It begins by critiquing contemporary philosophy of science, e.g., Popper’s falsifiability theory, his stress on deduction, and the hypothetico-deductive method. Next I present some history of the concept of induction in philosophy and of inductive theory building in the hard sciences (e.g., Aristotle, Bacon, Newton). This is followed by three examples of successful theory building by induction in psychology and management (Beck’s theory, Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, goal setting theory). The paper concludes with some suggested guidelines for successful theory building through induction and some new policies that journal editors might encourage. Like most social scientists (but maybe not most Bayesians ), I’m pretty much a Popperian myself, so I was interested to see someone taking such a
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Introduction: Adam Gurri writes: Any chance you could do a post explaining Popper’s propensity theory of probability? I have never understood it. My reply: I’m a big fan of Popper (search this blog for details), especially as interpreted by Lakatos, but as far as I can tell, Popper’s theory of probability is hopeless. We’ve made a lot of progress on probability in the past 75 years, and I don’t see any real need to go back to the bad old days.
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Introduction: Here’s an article that I believe is flat-out entertaining to read. It’s about philosophy, so it’s supposed to be entertaining, in any case. Here’s the abstract: A substantial school in the philosophy of science identifies Bayesian inference with inductive inference and even rationality as such, and seems to be strengthened by the rise and practical success of Bayesian statistics. We argue that the most successful forms of Bayesian statistics do not actually support that particular philosophy but rather accord much better with sophisticated forms of hypothetico-deductivism. We examine the actual role played by prior distributions in Bayesian models, and the crucial aspects of model checking and model revision, which fall outside the scope of Bayesian confirmation theory. We draw on the literature on the consistency of Bayesian updating and also on our experience of applied work in social science. Clarity about these matters should benefit not just philosophy of science, but
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Introduction: Professor of business management Edwin Locke sent me an article : This paper argues that theory building in the social sciences, management and psychology included, should be inductive. It begins by critiquing contemporary philosophy of science, e.g., Popper’s falsifiability theory, his stress on deduction, and the hypothetico-deductive method. Next I present some history of the concept of induction in philosophy and of inductive theory building in the hard sciences (e.g., Aristotle, Bacon, Newton). This is followed by three examples of successful theory building by induction in psychology and management (Beck’s theory, Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, goal setting theory). The paper concludes with some suggested guidelines for successful theory building through induction and some new policies that journal editors might encourage. Like most social scientists (but maybe not most Bayesians ), I’m pretty much a Popperian myself, so I was interested to see someone taking such a
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Introduction: James Robins, Tyler VanderWeele, and Richard Gill write : Neyman introduced a formal mathematical theory of counterfactual causation that now has become standard language in many quantitative disciplines, but not in physics. We use results on causal interaction and interference between treatments (derived under the Neyman theory) to give a simple new proof of a well-known result in quantum physics, namely, Bellís inequality. Now the predictions of quantum mechanics and the results of experiment both violate Bell’s inequality. In the remainder of the talk, we review the implications for a counterfactual theory of causation. Assuming with Einstein that faster than light (supraluminal) communication is not possible, one can view the Neyman theory of counterfactuals as falsified by experiment. . . . Is it safe for a quantitative discipline to rely on a counterfactual approach to causation, when our best confirmed physical theory falsifies their existence? I haven’t seen the talk
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Introduction: Professor of business management Edwin Locke sent me an article : This paper argues that theory building in the social sciences, management and psychology included, should be inductive. It begins by critiquing contemporary philosophy of science, e.g., Popper’s falsifiability theory, his stress on deduction, and the hypothetico-deductive method. Next I present some history of the concept of induction in philosophy and of inductive theory building in the hard sciences (e.g., Aristotle, Bacon, Newton). This is followed by three examples of successful theory building by induction in psychology and management (Beck’s theory, Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, goal setting theory). The paper concludes with some suggested guidelines for successful theory building through induction and some new policies that journal editors might encourage. Like most social scientists (but maybe not most Bayesians ), I’m pretty much a Popperian myself, so I was interested to see someone taking such a
Introduction: Gur Huberman points to an article on the financial crisis by Bethany McLean, who writes : lthough our understanding of what instigated the 2008 global financial crisis remains at best incomplete, there are a few widely agreed upon contributing factors. One of them is a 2004 rule change by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that allowed investment banks to load up on leverage. This disastrous decision has been cited by a host of prominent economists, including Princeton professor and former Federal Reserve Vice-Chairman Alan Blinder and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. It has even been immortalized in Hollywood, figuring into the dark financial narrative that propelled the Academy Award-winning film Inside Job. . . . Here’s just one problem with this story line: It’s not true. Nor is it hard to prove that. Look at the historical leverage of the big five investment banks — Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The Government Accou
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