The replication (replicability, reproducibility) crisis in social psychology and clinical medicine arises from the fact that many apparently well-confirmed experimental results are subsequently overturned by studies that aim to replicate the original study. The culprit is widely held to be poor science: questionable research practices, failure to publish negative results, bad incentives, and even fraud. In this article I argue that the high rate of failed replications is consistent with high-quality science. We would expect this outcome if the field of (...) science in question produces a high proportion of false hypotheses prior to testing. If most of the hypotheses under test are false, then there will be many false hypotheses that are apparently supported by the outcomes of well conducted experiments and null hypothesis significance tests with a type-I error rate (α) of 5%. Failure to recognize this is to commit the fallacy of ignoring the base rate. I argue that this is a plausible diagnosis of the replication crisis and examine what lessons we thereby learn for the future conduct of science. (shrink)

Recently a great deal of attention has been paid to conflicts of interest in medical research, and the Institute of Medicine has called for more research into this important area. One research question that has not received sufficient attention concerns the mechanisms of action by which conflicts of interest can result in biased and/or flawed research. What discretion do conflicted researchers have to sway the results one way or the other? We address this issue from the perspective of selective inertia, (...) or an unnatural selection of research methods based on which are most likely to establish the preferred conclusions, rather than on which are most valid. In many cases it is abundantly clear that a method that is not being used in practice is superior to the one that is being used in practice, at least from the perspective of validity, and that it is only inertia, as opposed to any serious suggestion that the incumbent method is superior, that keeps the inferior procedure in use, to the exclusion of the superior one. By focusing on these flawed research methods we can go beyond statements of potential harm from real conflicts of interest, and can more directly assess actual harm. (shrink)

The undoing hypothesis proposes that positive emotions serve to undo sympathetic arousal related to negative emotions and stress. However, a recent qualitative review challenged the undoing effect by presenting conflicting results. To address this issue quantitatively, we conducted a meta-analytic review of 16 studies ( N = 1,220; 72 effect sizes) measuring sympathetic recovery during elicited positive emotions and neutral conditions. Findings indicated that in most cases, positive emotions did not speed sympathetic recovery compared to neutral conditions. However, when a (...) composite index of cardiovascular reactivity was used, undoing effects were evident. Our findings suggest the need for further work on the functions of positive emotions. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 132-160, April 2022. Autonomic nervous system activity is a fundamental component of emotional responding. It is not clear, however, whether positive emotional states are associated with differential ANS reactivity. To address this issue, we conducted a meta-analytic review of 120 articles, measuring ANS activity during 11 elicited positive emotions, namely amusement, attachment love, awe, contentment, craving, excitement, gratitude, joy, nurturant love, pride, and sexual desire. We identified a widely dispersed collection of studies. Univariate (...) results indicated that positive emotions produce no or weak and highly variable increases in ANS reactivity. However, the limitations of work to date – which we discuss – mean that our conclusions should be treated as empirically grounded hypotheses that future research should validate. (shrink)

The three main approaches in statistical inference—classical statistics, Bayesian and likelihood—are in current use in phylogeny research. The three approaches are discussed and compared, with particular emphasis on theoretical properties illustrated by simple thought-experiments. The methods are problematic on axiomatic grounds, extra-mathematical grounds relating to the use of a prior or practical grounds. This essay aims to increase understanding of these limits among those with an interest in phylogeny.

In this paper, we consider the way that web documents seeking to persuade readers of certain science claims provide information about the sources of the arguments. Our quantitative analysis reveals that web documents in our sample include hundreds of examples in which the reader is provided information regarding the trustworthiness of sources. The web documents also contain a large number of examples in which the reader is provided with information about how many individuals hold a particular belief. We discuss ad (...) hominem, ad verecundiam, and ad populum arguments, and the way that the examples found in our sample of documents are related to these argumentation schemes. (shrink)

Empirical success is a central criterion for scientific decision-making. Yet its understanding in philosophical studies of science deserves renewed attention: Should philosophers think differently about the advancement of science when they deal with the uncertainty of outcome in ongoing research in comparison with historical episodes? This paper argues that normative appeals to empirical success in the evaluation of competing scientific explanations can result in unreliable conclusions, especially when we are looking at the changeability of direction in ongoing investigations. The challenges (...) we encounter arise from the inherent dynamics of disciplinary and experimental objectives in research practice. In this paper we discuss how these dynamics inform the evaluation of empirical success by analyzing three of its requirements: data accommodation, instrumental reliability, and predictive power. We conclude that the assessment of empirical success in developing inquiry is set against the background of a model’s interactive success and prospective value in an experimental context. Our argument is exemplified by the analysis of an apparent controversy surrounding the model of a quantum nose in research on olfaction. Notably the public narrative of this controversy rests on a distorted perspective on measures of empirical success. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to propose a way to determine to what extent a hypothesis H is confirmed if it has successfully passed a classical significance test. Bayesians have already raised many serious objections against significance testing, but in doing so they have always had to rely on epistemic probabilities and a further Bayesian analysis, which are rejected by classical statisticians. Therefore, I will suggest a purely frequentist evaluation procedure for significance tests that should also be accepted by (...) a classical statistician. This procedure likewise indicates some additional problems of significance tests. In some situations, such tests offer only a weak incremental support of a hypothesis, although an absolute confirmation is necessary, and they overestimate positive results for small effects, since the confirmation of H is often rather marginal in these cases. In specific cases, for example, in cases of ESP-hypotheses, such as precognition, this phenomenon leads too easily to a significant confirmation and can be regarded as a form of the probabilistic falsification fallacy. (shrink)

This study tested the hypothesis that in the minds of adult religious adherents, acquired beliefs about the extraordinary characteristics of God coexist with, rather than replace, an initial representation of God formed by co-option of the evolved person concept. In three experiments, Christian religious adherents were asked to evaluate a series of statements for which core intuitions about persons and acquired Christian beliefs about God were consistent or inconsistent. Participants were less accurate and slower to respond to inconsistent versus consistent (...) statements, suggesting that the core intuitions both coexisted alongside and interfered with the acquired beliefs. In Experiment 2 when responding under time pressure participants were disproportionately more likely to make errors on inconsistent versus consistent statements than when responding with no time pressure, suggesting that the resolution of interference requires cognitive resources the functioning of which decreases under cognitive load. In Experiment 3 a plausible alternative interpretation of these findings was ruled out by demonstrating that the response accuracy and time differences on consistent versus inconsistent statements occur for God—a supernatural religious entity—but not for a natural religious entity. (shrink)

Is science in the midst of a crisis of replicability and false discoveries? In a recent article, Alexander Bird offers an explanation for the apparent lack of replicability in the biomedical sciences. Bird argues that the surprise at the failure to replicate biomedical research is a result of the fallacy of neglecting the base rate. The base-rate fallacy arises in situations in which one ignores the base rate—or prior probability—of an event when assessing the probability of this event in the (...) light of some observed evidence. By extension, the replication crisis would result from ignoring the low prior probability of biomedical hypotheses. In this paper, my response to Bird’s claim is twofold. First, I show that the argument according to which the replication crisis is due to the low prior of biomedical hypotheses is incomplete. Second, I claim that a simple base-rate fallacy model does not account for some important methodological insights that have emerged in discussions of the replication crisis. (shrink)

While there has been much discussion of how the scientific establishment’s culture can engender research misconduct and scientific irreproducibility, this has been discussed much less frequently with respect to the medical profession. Here the authors posit that a lack of self-criticism, an encouragement of novel scientific research generated by the recruitment policies of the UK Royal Training Colleges along with insufficient training in the sciences are core reasons as to why research misconduct and dishonesty prevail within the medical community. Furthermore, (...) the UK General Medical Council’s own data demonstrates a historic inattentiveness to the ease with which doctors can engage in research misconduct. Suggestions are made as to how these issues can be investigated and alternative incentives for career advancement are adumbrated. (shrink)

The most recent tool for acting on the world, the exosomatization of cognitive activities, is often considered an autonomous and objective replacement of knowledge construction. We show the intrinsic limits of the mechanistic myths in AI, from classical to Deep Learning techniques, and its relation to the human construction of sense. Human activities in a changing ecosystem – in their somatic and sensible dimensionalities proper to any living experiences – are at the core of our analysis. By this, we stress (...) the key role of the knowing subject, far away from any allegedly objective big collections of data. The production of organized structures of physics, biology and in societal analysis will be compared and distinguished by trying to set on more robust grounds the constructive as well as the disruptive roles of entropic, negentropic, anti-entropic dynamics that are different concepts in different domains, to be handled with care: the use of machine learning and optimization methods as tools and models to analyse and manage human activities in view of their scientific and political ideology of technoscientific governance. They suppose that which they try to produce is objective, that is, standardized and controllable behaviours. In this dialogue we stress a mirror symmetry between the lack of theoretical interpretation of scientific data and the lack of democracy in this fiction of neutrality. Moreover, bad analogies constitute an obstacle to grasp the anteriority of biological and ecological constraints which enable and limit all artificial products of human intelligence. We will thus stress biological specificity, the role of normativity and constraints in evolution, of labour in structuring the human historical construction of sense by common activities. (shrink)

As it has historically been the case with many pandemics, the Covid-19 experience will induce many philosophers to reconsider the value of medical practice. This should be a good opportunity to critically scrutinize the way medical research and medical interventions are carried out. For much of its history, medicine has been very inefficient. But, even in its contemporary forms, a review of common protocols in medical research and medical interventions reveal many shortcomings, especially related to methodological flaws, and more importantly, (...) conflicts of interests due to profit incentives. In the face of these problems, we propose a program of “gentle medicine”. This term, originally formulated by philosopher Jacob Stegenga, describes a form of medicine in which physicians intervene less than they currently do. As part of this general program, we advance a series of reform recommendations that could be enacted both by medical staff in their everyday practice, but also by public health officials and policymakers. (shrink)

The paper discusses self-plagiarism and associated practices in scholarly publishing. It approaches at some length the conceptual issues raised by the notion of self-plagiarism. It distinguishes among and then examines the main families of arguments against self-plagiarism, as well as the question of possibly legitimate reasons to engage in this practice. It concludes that some of the animus frequently reserved for self-plagiarism may be the result of, among others, poor choice of a label, unwarranted generalizations as to its ill effects (...) based on the specific experience (and goals) of particular disciplines, and widespread but not necessarily beneficial publishing practices. (shrink)

Nowadays, almost everyone seems to agree that science is facing an epistemological crisis – namely the replicability crisis – and that we need to take action. But as to precisely what to do or how...

The social and cognitive science replication crisis is partly due to the limitations of commonly used statistical tools. Inferential statistics require that unsystematic measurement variation is independent of system history, and weak relative to systematic or causal sources of variation. However, contemporary systems research underscores the dynamic, adaptive nature of social, cognitive, and behavioral systems. Variation in human activity includes the influences of intrinsic dynamics intertwined with changing contextual circumstances. Conventional inferential techniques presume milder forms of variability, such as unsystematic (...) measurement error, as in a Gaussian distribution. Inferential statistics indicate an elementary Newtonian cause-effect metaphor for change that is inconsistent with known principles of change in complex systems. Pattern formation in self-organizing systems and quantum probability are used to illustrate theoretical metaphors that instantiate alternative notions of change in complex systems. Inferential statistics and related techniques are crucial scientific resources. However, in the social and behavioral sciences, they must be practiced in conjunction with an appropriate general systems framework that accommodates intrinsic fluctuations and contextual adaptation. (shrink)

The dominant paradigm of experiments in the social and behavioral sciences views an experiment as a test of a theory, where the theory is assumed to generalize beyond the experiment's specific conditions. According to this view, which Alan Newell once characterized as “playing twenty questions with nature,” theory is advanced one experiment at a time, and the integration of disparate findings is assumed to happen via the scientific publishing process. In this article, we argue that the process of integration is (...) at best inefficient, and at worst it does not, in fact, occur. We further show that the challenge of integration cannot be adequately addressed by recently proposed reforms that focus on the reliability and replicability of individual findings, nor simply by conducting more or larger experiments. Rather, the problem arises from the imprecise nature of social and behavioral theories and, consequently, a lack of commensurability across experiments conducted under different conditions. Therefore, researchers must fundamentally rethink how they design experiments and how the experiments relate to theory. We specifically describe an alternative framework, integrative experiment design, which intrinsically promotes commensurability and continuous integration of knowledge. In this paradigm, researchers explicitly map the design space of possible experiments associated with a given research question, embracing many potentially relevant theories rather than focusing on just one. Researchers then iteratively generate theories and test them with experiments explicitly sampled from the design space, allowing results to be integrated across experiments. Given recent methodological and technological developments, we conclude that this approach is feasible and would generate more-reliable, more-cumulative empirical and theoretical knowledge than the current paradigm – and with far greater efficiency. (shrink)

Research integrity is core to the mission of higher education. In undergraduate student samples, self-reported rates of data fabrication have been troublingly high. Despite this, no research has investigated undergraduate data fabrication in a more systematic manner. We applied duplication screening techniques to 18 data sets submitted by psychology honors students for assessment. Although we did not identify any completely duplicated cases, there were numerous partial duplicates. Rather than indicating fabrication, however, these partial duplicates are likely a consequence of poor (...) measure selection, insufficient data screening, and/or participant characteristics. Implications for the teaching and supervision of honors students are discussed. (shrink)

Biological mimicry is regarded by many as a textbook illustration of Darwin’s idea of evolution by random mutation followed by differential selection of reproductively fit specimens, resulting in gradual phenotypic change in a population. In this paper, I argue that some cases of so-called mimicry are probably merely look-a-likes and do not gain an advantage due to their similarity in appearance to something else. In cases where a similar appearance does provide a benefit, I argue that it is possible that (...) these forms of mimicry were created in a single generation. An interpretive response to an appearance as a sign can make a new structure perform drastically differently in an environment. In such cases, Darwin’s natural selection mechanism only helps to explain gradual the spread of these new forms, not the creation of them. I argue that biosemiosis should be regarded as a much more powerful mechanism for affecting evolutionary trajectories than the gradualist view allows. I focus on two cases of butterfly mimicry: the Viceroy (Nymphalidae: Limenitis archippus) and Monarch (Nymphalidae: Danaus plexippus) butterflies, supposed Müllerian mimics, and deadleaf mimic butterflies (Kallima). (shrink)

Notwithstanding the popularity of psychology courses throughout the world, educators face a constant and difficult problem of overcoming the fear of and dislike for statistics which represents one of the pillars of modern psychological science. Although the issue is complex and multifaceted, here I argue that “statophobia” might represent a rational and justified response to the sense of unease felt in contact with abstract statistical concepts which are often vague, circular or ill-defined. I illustrate the problem by briefly discussing two (...) myths about the nature of probability and statistics, namely that probability and statistics generate knowledge and that the fault for not understanding probability lies solely with the subjective cognition which is incapable of comprehending deeper mathematical truth. I argue that the confident presentation of statistical methods hides numerous conceptual blind spots that students might be aware of and that need to be addressed before other causes of statistics anxiety can be tackled successfully. (shrink)

Anonymous argumentation has recently been the focus of public controversy: flash points include the outing of pseudonymous bloggers by newspapers and the launch of an academic journal that expressly permits pseudonymous authorship. However, the controversy is not just a recent one—similar debates took place in the nineteenth century over the then common practice of anonymous journalism. Amongst the arguments advanced by advocates of anonymous argumentation in either era is the contention that it is essential if the widest range of voices (...) are to be heard; amongst the counterarguments of its critics, that it weakens the credibility of individual arguments and irresponsibly cheapens the standard of public discourse. This paper explores some implications of the controversy for the ethics of argumentation in general and virtue theories of argumentation in particular. (shrink)

In light of the recent credibility crisis in psychology, this paper argues for a greater emphasis on theorizing in scientific research. Although reliable experimental evidence, preregistration, methodological rigor, and new computational frameworks for modeling are important, scientific progress also relies on properly functioning theories. However, the current understanding of the role of theorizing in psychology is lacking, which may lead to future crises. Theories should not be viewed as mere speculations or simple inductive generalizations. To address this issue, the author (...) introduces a framework called “cognitive metascience,” which studies the processes and results of evaluating scientific practice. This study should proceed both qualitatively, as in traditional science and technology studies and cognitive science, and quantitatively, by analyzing scientific discourse using language technology. By analyzing theories as cognitive artifacts that support cognitive tasks, this paper aims to shed more light on their nature. This perspective reveals that multiple distinct theories serve entirely different roles, and studying these roles, along with their epistemic vices and virtues, can provide insight into how theorizing should proceed. The author urges a change in research culture to appreciate the variety of distinct theories and to systematically advance scientific progress. . (shrink)

The origins of testing scientific models with statistical techniques go back to 18th century mathematics. However, the modern theory of statistical testing was primarily developed through the work of Sir R.A. Fisher, Jerzy Neyman, and Egon Pearson in the inter-war period. Some of Fisher's papers on testing were published in economics journals (Fisher, 1923, 1935) and exerted a notable influence on the discipline. The development of econometrics and the rise of quantitative economic models in the mid-20th century made statistical significance (...) testing a commonplace, albeit controversial tool within economics. -/- In the debate about significance testing, methodological controversies intertwine with epistemological issues and sociological developments. Our aim in this chapter is to expound these connections and to show how the use of, and the debate about, significance testing in economics differs from other social sciences, such as psychology. (shrink)

Contemporary debates about scientific institutions and practice feature many proposed reforms. Most of these require increased efforts from scientists. But how do scientists’ incentives for effort interact? How can scientific institutions encourage scientists to invest effort in research? We explore these questions using a game-theoretic model of publication markets. We employ a base game between authors and reviewers, before assessing some of its tendencies by means of analysis and simulations. We compare how the effort expenditures of these groups interact in (...) our model under a variety of settings, such as double-blind and open review systems. We make a number of findings, including that open review can increase the effort of authors in a range of circumstances and that these effects can manifest in a policy-relevant period of time. However, we find that open review’s impact on authors’ efforts is sensitive to the strength of several other influences. (shrink)

The field of experimental philosophy has received considerable attention, essentially for producing results that seem highly counter-intuitive and at the same time question some of the fundamental methods used in philosophy. A substantial part of this attention has focused on the role of intuitions in philosophical methodology. One of the major contributions of experimental philosophy on this topic has been concrete evidence in support of intuitional diversity; the idea that intuitions vary systematically depending on variables such as ethnicity, socioeconomic background, (...) or gender. Because of the important implications, these findings have been the subject of extensive debate. Despite the seeming significance of the findings and despite all the debates that the experimental philosophy movement has prompted, what has not been examined systematically is the reproducibility of the results. Instead, the reported findings have been simply accepted as established facts. We set out to replicate a wide range of experiments and surprisingly failed to reproduce many of the reported findings, some of which are from the most cited and attention grabbing papers of the field. We draw two conclusions from our findings. The first is that the instability of intuitions has been exaggerated by experimental philosophers. Intuitions appear to be more uniform across different demographic groups. The argument that intuitions need to be discarded because they depend on arbitrary factors such as ethnicity, socioeconomic background, or gender does not seem tenable anymore. The second conclusion is that experimental philosophy needs a better system to ensure the reproducibility of published findings. The current research-publication system of various empirical fields, especially those employing statistical methods, leads to an overproduction of false-positive findings in the published literature. Unless changes are made to the current research-publication system, this overproduction is likely to continue, in experimental philosophy as well as other disciplines. (shrink)

The common view of science is a misunderstanding of today's science that does not recognize how "modern" science has changed since its inception in the 16th to 17th centuries. Science is generally taken to be objectively reliable because it uses "the scientific method" and because scientists work disinterestedly, publish openly, and keep one another honest through peer review. That common view was not too unrealistic in the early days and the glory days of modern science, but it is quite wrong (...) about contemporary science, which has ceased to be trustworthy because it is subject to commercial and bureaucratic influences that have spawned highly damaging conflicts of interest, institutional as well as personal. The birth of "modern" science is credited uncontroversially to "The" Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, but it has not been widely under-stood that there have been three distinctly different stages of scientific activity since then. In the first stage, amateurs were seeking to satisfy their curiosity about how the world works. There were essentially no controlling interests other than truth-seeking. Missteps taken resulted chiefly from the inherent difficulty of making discoveries and from such inherent human flaws as pride and avarice. The second stage, roughly the 19th century, saw science becoming a career, a plausible way to make a living, not unlike other careers in academe or professions like engineering: respectable and potentially satisfying but not any obvious path to great influence or wealth. Inevitably there were conflicts of interest between furthering a career and following objectively where evidence pointed, but competition and collegiality served well enough to keep the progress of science little affected by that conflicting career interest. The way to get ahead was by doing good science. In the third and present stage, which began at about the middle of the 20th century, science faces a necessary change in ethos as its centuries-long expansion at an exponential rate has changed to a zero-sum, steady-state situation that has fostered intensely cutthroat competition. At the same time, the record of science's remarkable previous successes has led industry and government to co-opt and exploit science and scientists. Those interactions offer the possibility for individuals to gain considerable public influence and wealth. That possibility tempts to corruption. Outright fraud in research has become noticeably more frequent, and public pronouncements about matters of science are made for self-interested bureaucratic and commercial motives. The public cannot now rely safely on the soundness of advice from the scientific community. Keywords: historical changes in science, science become untrustworthy. (shrink)

The article's subtitle tells it all: "Too many US authors of the most innovative and influential papers in the life sciences do not receive NIH funding... " This fits in a little-remarked genre: evidence that contemporary science is very different from the popular view of it as behaving objectively by virtue of the scientific method and peer review. Even as many such articles document flaws in clinical trials, statistical incompetence in much of the medical literature, and failures of peer review (...) (for example, Altman 1994, 2002, Bauer 2013, Ioannidis 2005, Ioannidis & Panagiotou 2011), there are no effective followup ventures to improve matters. In this instance, Nicholson and Ioannidis document with compelling data what actually is known to everyone trying to do research in biology or medicine: What matters is who you know, not what you know or what you have discovered. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has not been consistently supporting the best investigators, those whose work has had the greatest impact. One reason, with which again all insiders are familiar, is that the NIH study sections that make recommendations on grants are populated by people who themselves are very likely to have funding through NIH, albeit their work has had comparatively little impact. To exaggerate only slightly, grant proposals from geniuses are adjudicated by mediocrities. Nicholson and Ioannidis suggest that one partial remedy would be for NIH to direct funds primarily to people of proven accomplishment instead of by the project-grant system that prevails in almost all funding of scientific research. The absurdity of that almost universal system is, again, widely recognized: Proposals for funding are expected to explain what the work will accomplish and what its impact will be, which cannot possibly be done if the work is to be truly creative and exploratory. So what gets funded are routine banalities. Richard Muller (1980) long ago noted what one has to do: Present a banal proposal and then bootleg as much as possible of the grant for really worthwhile work. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a practical guideline for researchers investigating parapsychological phenomena or phenomena to choose appropriate sample sizes to achieve a statistical power equal or above 0.80. The availability of different meta-analyses related to different parapsychological phenomena, offer a sufficient estimation of the expected effect size, usually in the range of small to very small. With these measures, we estimated the numerosity of sample sizes necessary to achieve a level of statistical power that can facilitate (...) the replication of the observations of different parapsychological phenomena. We discuss ways to deal with the investigation of phenomena with very small effect sizes requiring very large sample sizes. (shrink)

This manuscript describes our past experiences with reviewers and the review procedures that are currently used in the medical sciences. We conclude that reviewers all too often are biased, whereas scientific discussion should be based on substantive comments and without prejudice. In our opinion, subjective arguments for rejection of manuscripts constitute a serious threat to evidence-based medicine. Since peer review should aim to facilitate the introduction into medicine of improved ways of curing, relieving, and comforting patients, a more objective review (...) system with greater scope for the publication of divergent opinions is clearly needed to ensure that a literature search does not merely produce a plethora of articles with mainstream opinions. Our recommendations for a peer review system are: (1) No more anonymous reviewers; (2) The reviewer must concentrate initially on two questions: (a) was a real problem formulated in this manuscript? and (b) is the conclusion—if proven—relevant for practical situations? Keywords: publication bias—evidence-based medicine—review. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists have revealed systematic errors in human reasoning. There is disagreement about what these errors indicate about human rationality, but one upshot seems clear: human reasoning does not seem to fit traditional views of human rationality. This concern about rationality has made its way through various fields and has recently caught the attention of philosophers. The concern is that if philosophers are prone to systematic errors in reasoning, then the integrity of philosophy would be threatened. In this paper, I (...) present some of the more famous work in cognitive science that has marshaled this concern. Then I present reasons to think that those with training in philosophy will be less prone to certain systematic errors in reasoning. The suggestion is that if philosophers could be shown to be less prone to such errors, then the worries about the integrity of philosophy could be constrained. Then I present evidence that, according to performance on the CRT (Frederick 2005), those who have benefited from training and selection in philosophy are indeed less prone to one kind of systematic error: irrationally arbitrating between intuitive and reflective responses. Nonetheless, philosophers are not entirely immune to this systematic error, and their proclivity for this error is statistically related to their responses to a variety of philosophical questions. So, while the evidence herein puts constraints on the worries about the integrity of philosophy, it by no means eliminates these worries. The conclusion, then, is that the present evidence offers prima facie reasons to ascribe a mitigated privilege to philosophers' ability to rationally arbitrate between intuitive and reflective responses. (shrink)

This paper reviews one of the most methodologically rigorous studies of mediumship conducted to date. On the surface, the statistical procedures used by Julie Beischel and Gary E. Schwartz in the study seem to support the existence of anomalous information reception (AIR), but in fact have been misapplied. Other methodological flaws are fatal, including unaccounted for researcher degrees of freedom, which completely calls into question Beischel and Schwartz’s conclusion regarding AIR. We conclude by proposing an experimental design more appropriate for (...) the small sample sizes typically used in experimental mediumship research. -/- 1. Methodology -- 2. Results (Data and Statistics) - 2.1 Arizona Whole Reading Rating Scale Data (t-Test) - 2.2 Forced-Choice Data (Binomial Test) - 2.3 Item-by-Item Ratings (Untested) - 2.4 Researcher Degrees of Freedom - 2.5 The Source of Bias -- 3. Recommendations -- 4. Mechanisms -- 5. Conclusion. (shrink)

In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between the design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their ethical implications can have severe consequences (...) affecting individuals as well as groups and whole societies. This paper makes three contributions to clarify the ethical importance of algorithmic mediation. It provides a prescriptive map to organise the debate. It reviews the current discussion of ethical aspects of algorithms. And it assesses the available literature in order to identify areas requiring further work to develop the ethics of algorithms. (shrink)

Critically growing problems of fundamental science organisation and content are analysed with examples from physics and emerging interdisciplinary fields. Their origin is specified and new science structure (organisation and content) is proposed as a unified solution.

While practical efforts in the field of artificial intelligence grow exponentially, the truly scientific and mathematically exact understanding of the underlying phenomena of intelligence and consciousness is still missing in the conventional science framework. The inevitably dominating empirical, trial-and-error approach has vanishing efficiency for those extremely complicated phenomena, ending up in fundamentally limited imitations of intelligent behaviour. We provide the first-principle analysis of unreduced many-body interaction process in the brain revealing its qualitatively new features, which give rise to rigorously defined (...) chaotic, noncomputable, intelligent and conscious behaviour. Based on the obtained universal concepts of unreduced dynamic complexity, intelligence and consciousness, we derive the universal laws of intelligence applicable to any kind of intelligent system interacting with the environment. We finally show why and how these fundamentally substantiated and therefore practically efficient laws of intelligent system dynamics are indispensable for correct AI design and training, which is urgently needed in this time of critical global change towards the truly sustainable development. (shrink)

This summary of the original paradigm of the universal science of complexity starts with the discovered exact origin of the stagnating "end" of conventional, unitary science paradigm and development traditionally presented by its own estimates as the only and the best possible kind of scientific knowledge. Using a transparent generalisation of the exact mathematical formalism of arbitrary interaction process, we show that unitary science approach and description, including its imitations of complexity and chaoticity, correspond to artificial and ultimately strong reduction (...) of the natural plurality of unreduced interaction results called realisations to a single, "average" or "exact", realisation. This severe reduction of the natural world dynamics in unitary science underlies all its unsolvable "mysteries" and "paradoxes", persisting "difficult problems", and finally the modern "end" of the progress of just that, actually very special kind of knowledge, whose irreducible limits lead to the modern deep crisis of the global civilisation development. We show then how the rigorously substantiated restoration of the full richness of real-world dynamics within the intrinsically unified knowledge of the universal science of complexity provides not only the causally complete solution to the old and new problems of unitary science but opens practically unlimited possibilities for the new progress of science and civilisation as a result of this crucial extension, which we call complexity revolution. The unreduced analysis of the universal complexity science shows that at the current critical bifurcation point of development, we have only two incompatible possibilities and emerging tendencies, either the dangerously growing degradation within the dominating unitary science and thinking limits (irrespective of purely empirical technology power becoming even dangerous here) or the new golden age of scientific discoveries and civilisation progress with the qualitatively extended approach and results of unreduced complexity science and the new thinking it implies. (shrink)

Experimental design is one aspect of a scientific method. A well-designed, properly conducted experiment aims to control variables in order to isolate and manipulate causal effects and thereby maximize internal validity, support causal inferences, and guarantee reliable results. Traditionally employed in the natural sciences, experimental design has become an important part of research in the social and behavioral sciences. Experimental methods are also endorsed as the most reliable guides to policy effectiveness. Through a discussion of some of the central concepts (...) associated with experimental design, including controlled variation and randomization, this chapter will provide a summary of key ethical issues that tend to arise in experimental contexts. In addition, by exploring assumptions about the nature of causation and by analyzing features of causal relationships, systems, and inferences in social contexts, this chapter will summarize the ways in which experimental design can undermine the integrity of not only social and behavioral research but policies implemented on the basis of such research. (shrink)

Anglophone musicologists read the cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek more than they read the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and they are more concerned with Žižekian academia than they are with Lacan’s clinical practice. Two major problems emerge: Lacan is conflated with Žižek, and Lacan is conflated with Kant. As a result, analytic discourse is confused with post-modern academia as well as an eighteenth-century master-discourse on the Sublime. According to the author’s argument, Lacanian musicology is a misnomer, for it in fact refers (...) to Žižekian musicology, and what musicologists call the Lacanian Real is not really Lacanian. The re-branding of the Kantian Sublime and/or the Thing as the Lacanian Real is not necessary; it is a symptom of confusion. The article concludes with a cautious recommendation, pertinent to the study of music and discourses. (shrink)

In my thesis, I develop two distinct themes. The first part of my thesis is devoted to indicative conditionals and approaching them from an empirically informed perspective. In the second part, I am developing classical topics of philosophy of science, specifically, scientific objectivity and the role of values in science, in connection to recent methodological developments, revolving around the Replication Crisis.

Research on bias in peer review examines scholarly communication and funding processes to assess the epistemic and social legitimacy of the mechanisms by which knowledge communities vet and self-regulate their work. Despite vocal concerns, a closer look at the empirical and methodological limitations of research on bias raises questions about the existence and extent of many hypothesized forms of bias. In addition, the notion of bias is predicated on an implicit ideal that, once articulated, raises questions about the normative implications (...) of research on bias in peer review. This review provides a brief description of the function, history, and scope of peer review; articulates and critiques the conception of bias unifying research on bias in peer review; characterizes and examines the empirical, methodological, and normative claims of bias in peer review research; and assesses possible alternatives to the status quo. We close by identifying ways to expand conceptions and studies of bias to countenance the complexity of social interactions among actors involved directly and indirectly in peer review. (shrink)

Transcranial direct current stimulation is a safe and efficient intervention for treating major depressive disorder. However, research has suggested heterogeneity of response between patients. The emerging field of precision psychiatry aims to use statistical modeling of multi-modal data to tailor treatment to the single patient. To this end, more in-depth analysis of randomized controlled trials will be relevant due to limited availability of other large datasets with high phenotypic detail and to develop tools for personalization within counterfactually controlled environments to (...) distinguish specific vs. non-specific patterns in treatment data. Previous research has aimed at identifying patient-related factors associated with better response. However, most analyses have operated on the group-level, ignoring natural clusters within the patients' constituting factors, their individual trajectories of symptom improvement, and their presented symptoms. Furthermore, group-based modeling strategies were limited to explanatory approaches using in-sample hypothesis-testing, that are ill-suited to prognosticate outcomes of single patients. This dissertation provides a methodological framework for reevaluation of existing clinical trial data to provide future investigations with more differentiated units of analysis and to complement explanatory approaches with predictive modeling strategies enabling prediction of single-patient outcomes. Using data from a landmark 3-arm clinical trial paradigmatic for a rigorously controlled experimental design the dissertation provides three blueprint studies for modeling heterogeneity of tDCS response: Study 1 characterized response to tDCS by considering patient-individual dynamics of symptom change over the course of treatment. Distinct trajectories of tDCS response could be identified, representing patient subgroups with varying strength and speed of improvement. These results suggest development of individualized treatment protocols and exploration of prolonged treatment courses. Study 2 reevaluated the efficacy of tDCS, in distinct, naturally occurring clusters of depressive symptoms. Using unsupervised machine learning, a global depression measure was parsed into 4 distinct symptom clusters. Analysis of cluster-scores showed superiority of tDCS and escitalopram over placebo in core depressive symptoms, but only tDCS was superior in improving sleep and only escitalopram was superior in improving guilt/anxiety symptoms, suggesting treatment selection based on patients' symptom profiles. In Study 3 supervised ML algorithms were employed to predict response to tDCS. In this proof-of-concept approach, response could be predicted above chance on the single-patient level, but overall accuracy was modest. Features employed for model training were explored using interpretable ML methods. Trained algorithms were provided to the field for expansion as well as tests of generalizability and incremental utility. The presented studies illustrate how in-depth secondary analyses of clinical trial data can aid personalization of treatment. The provided methodological framework can be expanded and generalized to other contexts and interventions that show heterogeneity of treatment effects. Yet, the empirical studies also epitomize challenges precision psychiatry is faced with, including low data availability, low outcome granularity, and limited external validation opportunities. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of challenges and future directions resulting from infrastructural demands in data acquisition, data management, data sharing, and interdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)

The practice of HARKing---hypothesizing after results are known---is commonly maligned as undermining the reliability of scientific findings. There are several accounts in the literature as to why HARKing undermines the reliability of findings. We argue that none of these is right and that the correct account is a Bayesian one. HARKing can indeed decrease the reliability of scientific findings, but it can also increase it; which effect HARKing produces depends on the difference of the prior odds of hypotheses characteristically selected (...) ex ante and ex post to observing data. Further, we show how misdiagnosis of HARKing can lead to misprescription in the context of the replication crisis. (shrink)