Asymptotic Philosophers

A philosophy of science blog

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The statistical, the scientific, the social, and p-values

Posted on Author KinoPosted in Philosophy of Science, Scattered Plot
Kino
Kino
Kino specializes in the philosophy of statistics and its application in the social sciences. She looks at the methodology of social sciences in general but psychology in particular through the lens of data analysis. Kino posts under the banner "Scattered Plot".
Kino
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My best effort searching online dates the use of the term “crisis” to describe worries concerning replication failure to an editorial piece by Pashler and Wagenmakers in 2012. The worry was voiced in the context of priming studies in social psychology, triggered by a number of unfortunate events unfolded in 2011: the Diederik Stapel fraud…

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Measurement as coordination

Posted on Author KinoPosted in Scattered Plot2 Replies
Kino
Kino
Kino specializes in the philosophy of statistics and its application in the social sciences. She looks at the methodology of social sciences in general but psychology in particular through the lens of data analysis. Kino posts under the banner "Scattered Plot".
Kino
Latest posts by Kino (see all)

This post is going to be more like a reading report. It’s hard to have super exciting ideas every week; sooner or later I’ll have to write something mundane. However, as Jeff Berrett (a faculty at LPS and member of my dissertation committee) says: a good paper just needs to elicit one interesting thought in…

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On failure to find a cure and the disease model of mental illness

Posted on Author KinoPosted in Philosophy of Science, Scattered Plot1 Reply
Kino
Kino
Kino specializes in the philosophy of statistics and its application in the social sciences. She looks at the methodology of social sciences in general but psychology in particular through the lens of data analysis. Kino posts under the banner "Scattered Plot".
Kino
Latest posts by Kino (see all)

I read a popular article (linked below) by the philosopher of science/statistics, Jacob Stegenga, on the lack of evidence on the effectiveness of antidepressants in treating depression. He presents and explains a number of major problems plaguing this kind of research: industry-funding, publication bias, low study quality, placebo effect combined with blind-breaking, lack of validity…

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A maybe-interesting feature of Sapolsky’s method

Posted on Author Chris MitschPosted in Method Matters
Chris Mitsch
Chris Mitsch
Chris studies the history and philosophy of science and mathematics. He is currently translating several works by Hilbert, Nordheim, and von Neumann as part of a project on the philosophy of mathematics that informed early quantum mechanics formalisms. He is also interested in: historical method and how this should inform general philosophy of science; the cognitive foundations of mathematics; and the construction of identity in (especially American) politics. Chris posts under the banner "Method Matters".
Chris Mitsch
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This year I’ve been running a reading group I’ve called “Effective Interdisciplinarity.” In my less professional moments I have been describing its concern as this: how does one avoid doing shitty interdisciplinary work? By “shitty” I mean to include not only the more obvious truth-y stuff–e.g., accurately representing the research of a non-native discipline–and methodological…

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Spearman’s g and what cross-culture tells us

Posted on Author KinoPosted in Philosophy of Science, Scattered Plot
Kino
Kino
Kino specializes in the philosophy of statistics and its application in the social sciences. She looks at the methodology of social sciences in general but psychology in particular through the lens of data analysis. Kino posts under the banner "Scattered Plot".
Kino
Latest posts by Kino (see all)

Saw this today. There exist many similar studies. They seem to say a lot. They seem to say nothing. I’ll comment on some moving parts below. Spearman’s g Found in 31 Non-Western Nations: Strong Evidence That g Is a Universal Phenomenon Abstract Spearman’s g is the name for the shared variance across a set of…

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Writing a climate survey

Posted on Author KinoPosted in For reference, Life in Academia, Scattered Plot1 Reply
Kino
Kino
Kino specializes in the philosophy of statistics and its application in the social sciences. She looks at the methodology of social sciences in general but psychology in particular through the lens of data analysis. Kino posts under the banner "Scattered Plot".
Kino
Latest posts by Kino (see all)

I am currently in the process of putting together a climate survey to assess departmental climate. As a result, I’ve been looking at some existing surveys that other departments have done and, no offense, but most of them are terrible. It’s occurred to me that, of course, questionnaire construction is extremely difficult in all sorts…

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