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41This paper analyzes Deborah Mayo's error-statistical (ES) account of scientific evidence in order to clarify the kinds of "material postulates" it requires and to explain how those assumptions function. A secondary aim is to explain and illustrate the importance of the security of an inference. After finding that, on the most straightforward reading of the ES account, it does not succeed in its stated aims, two remedies are considered: either relativize evidence claims or introduce stronger assu…Read more
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62: Evidence claims depend on fallible assumptions. This paper discusses inferential robustness as a strategy for justifying evidence claims in spite of this fallibility. I argue that robustness can be understood as a means of establishing the partial security of evidence claims. An evidence claim is secure relative to an epistemic situation if it remains true in all scenarios that are epistemically possible relative to that epistemic situation.
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15Steven French and Décio Krause, Identity in Physics: A Historical, Philosophical, and Formal Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xv+422. ISBN 0-19-927824-5. £55.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 42 (1): 145. 2009.
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44Novelty, severity, and history in the testing of hypotheses: The case of the top quarkPhilosophy of Science 63 (3): 255. 1996.It is sometimes held that facts confirm a hypothesis only if they were not used in the construction of that hypothesis. This requirement of "use novelty" introduces a historical aspect into the assessment of evidence claims. I examine a methodological principle invoked by physicists in the experimental search for the top quark that bears a striking resemblance to this view. However, this principle is better understood, both historically and philosophically, in terms of the need to conduct a seve…Read more
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16Evidence and Method: Scientific Strategies of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell (review)Isis 105 (3): 672-673. 2014.
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6Allan Franklin, No Easy Answers: Science and the Pursuit of Knowledge. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Pp. xii+258. $29.95 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 40 (3): 455. 2007.
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37The Evidence for the Top Quark: Objectivity and Bias in Collaborative ExperimentationCambridge University Press. 2004.The Evidence for the Top Quark offers both a historical and philosophical perspective on an important recent discovery in particle physics: evidence for the elementary particle known as the top quark. Drawing on published reports, oral histories, and internal documents from the large collaboration that performed the experiment, Kent Staley explores in detail the controversies and politics that surrounded this major scientific result. At the same time the book seeks to defend an objective theory …Read more
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87Pragmatic warrant for frequentist statistical practice: the case of high energy physicsSynthese 194 (2). 2017.Amidst long-running debates within the field, high energy physics has adopted a statistical methodology that primarily employs standard frequentist techniques such as significance testing and confidence interval estimation, but incorporates Bayesian methods for limited purposes. The discovery of the Higgs boson has drawn increased attention to the statistical methods employed within HEP. Here I argue that the warrant for the practice in HEP of relying primarily on frequentist methods can best be…Read more
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153Internalist and externalist aspects of justification in scientific inquirySynthese 182 (3): 475-492. 2011.While epistemic justification is a central concern for both contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science, debates in contemporary epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification have not been discussed extensively by philosophers of science. As a step toward a coherent account of scientific justification that is informed by, and sheds light on, justificatory practices in the sciences, this paper examines one of these debates—the internalist-externalist debate—from the perspective…Read more
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117Dirac's “Fine-Tuning Problem”: A Constructive Use of Anachronism?Perspectives on Science 20 (4): 476-503. 2012.
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866What experiment did we just do? Counterfactual error statistics and uncertainties about the reference classPhilosophy of Science 69 (2): 279-299. 2002.Experimenters sometimes insist that it is unwise to examine data before determining how to analyze them, as it creates the potential for biased results. I explore the rationale behind this methodological guideline from the standpoint of an error statistical theory of evidence, and I discuss a method of evaluating evidence in some contexts when this predesignation rule has been violated. I illustrate the problem of potential bias, and the method by which it may be addressed, with an example from …Read more
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100Strategies for securing evidence through model criticismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (1): 21-43. 2012.Some accounts of evidence regard it as an objective relationship holding between data and hypotheses, perhaps mediated by a testing procedure. Mayo’s error-statistical theory of evidence is an example of such an approach. Such a view leaves open the question of when an epistemic agent is justified in drawing an inference from such data to a hypothesis. Using Mayo’s account as an illustration, I propose a framework for addressing the justification question via a relativized notion, which I design…Read more
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