The Interface Between Statistics and Philosophy of Science

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the interface between statistics and the philosophy of science—the influences that each has had or might have on the other. The chapter focuses on the mathematics of philosophy or probabilistic philosophy. The approach is often only semi quantitative because of the difficulty or impossibility of assigning precise numbers to the probabilities. The use of partially ordered probabilities can be regarded as a kind of “formalization of vagueness.” It differs from the theory of fuzzy sets that deals with “degrees of belonging” to a set or, as it might be expressed, with “degrees of meaning.” Much of statistics consists of techniques for condensing data sets into simplified numerical and graphical forms that can be more readily apprehended by the eye–brain system, a system that has evolved at a cost of some l0 18 organism hours. Philosophers recognize the importance of techniques and technicians should reciprocate.

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