The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties

WORKSHOP

The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties

22-23 September 2022
15:00-18:00 pm London Time*
ONLINE
(London School of Economics, CPNSS)

To register for the workshop,
please fill out the registration form here.

*These will be sessions 1 & 2, there will be two more online sessions (3 & 4) on December 1 & 8.

While the field of statistics has a long history of passionate foundational controversy, the last decade has, in many ways, been the most dramatic. Misuses of statistics, biasing selection effects, and high-powered methods of big-data analysis, have helped to make it easy to find impressive-looking but spurious results that fail to replicate. As the crisis of replication has spread beyond psychology and social sciences to biomedicine, genomics, machine learning and other fields, the need for critical appraisal of proposed reforms is growing. Many are welcome (transparency about data, eschewing mechanical uses of statistics); some are quite radical. The experts do not agree on the best ways to promote trustworthy results, and these disagreements often reflect philosophical battles–old and new– about the nature of inductive-statistical inference and the roles of probability in statistical inference and modeling. Intermingled in the controversies about evidence are competing social, political, and economic values. If statistical consumers are unaware of assumptions behind rival evidence-policy reforms, they cannot scrutinize the consequences that affect them. What is at stake is a critical standpoint that we may increasingly be in danger of losing. Critically reflecting on proposed reforms and changing standards requires insights from statisticians, philosophers of science, psychologists, journal editors, economists and practitioners from across the natural and social sciences. This workshop will bring together these interdisciplinary insights–from speakers as well as attendees.

Speakers/Panellists:

Yoav Benjamini (Tel Aviv University), Alexander Bird (University of Cambridge), Mark Burgman (Imperial College London),  Daniele Fanelli (London School of Economics and Political Science), Roman Frigg (London School of Economics and Political Science), Stephan Guttinger (London School of Economics and Political Science), David Hand (Imperial College London), Margherita Harris  (London School of Economics and Political Science), Christian Hennig (University of Bologna), Daniël Lakens (Eindhoven University of Technology), Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech), Richard Morey (Cardiff University), Stephen Senn (Edinburgh, Scotland), Jon Williamson (University of Kent)

Sponsors/Affiliations:

The Foundation for the Study of Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (E.R.R.O.R.S.); Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), London School of Economics; Virginia Tech Department of Philosophy

Organizers: D. Mayo, R. Frigg and M. Harris
Logistician
 (chief logistics and contact person): Jean Miller
Executive Planning Committee: Y. Benjamini, D. Hand, D. Lakens, S. Senn

To register for the workshop,
please fill out the registration form here. 

The Statistics Wars and their Casualties workshop: Sept 22 & 23 (online)

Phil Stats Wars logo

Dear Colleagues,

The Statistics Wars and their Casualties workshop will now be fully online. The first 2 meetings (sessions 1 & 2) will be the scheduled dates, but only in the afternoons from 15-18:00 pm London time on Sept 22 and 23, 2022. There will be two future online meetings (sessions 3 & 4) probably in December with dates and times to be announced. There will be lots of opportunities to engage in discussion with attendees and special panelists.  We very much hope to see you there!

To register/receive notification of updates and schedules for the workshop, please visit this link. We really appreciate the continued interest many of you have shown in this workshop and associated forums over the past 2 years. We will strive to avoid duplicate messages. Write to us if you prefer not to receive any further updates on these events.

We would be grateful if you would forward this e-mail to interested colleagues.

Warmest Wishes,
D. Mayo
R. Frigg
M. Harris


The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties

22-23 September 2022
15:00-18:00 pm London Time*

ONLINE

To register/receive notification of updates for the  workshop, please fill out the registration/notification form here.

*These will be sessions 1 & 2, there will be two more future on-line sessions (3 & 4) to be announced.

Yoav Benjamini 
(Tel Aviv University), Alexander Bird (University of Cambridge), Mark Burgman (Imperial College London),  Daniele Fanelli (London School of Economics and Political Science), Roman Frigg (London School of Economics and Political Science), Stephan Guettinger (London School of Economics and Political Science), David Hand (Imperial College London), Margherita Harris (London School of Economics and Political Science), Christian Hennig (University of Bologna), Daniël Lakens (Eindhoven University of Technology), Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech), Richard Morey (Cardiff University), Stephen Senn  (Edinburgh, Scotland), Jon Williamson (University of Kent)

While the field of statistics has a long history of passionate foundational controversy the last decade has, in many ways, been the most dramatic. Misuses of statistics, biasing selection effects, and high powered methods of Big-Data analysis, have helped to make it easy to find impressive-looking but spurious, results that fail to replicate. As the crisis of replication has spread beyond psychology and social sciences to biomedicine, genomics and other fields, people are getting serious about reforms.  Many are welcome (preregistration, transparency about data, eschewing mechanical uses of statistics); some are quite radical. The experts do not agree on how to restore scientific integrity, and these disagreements reflect philosophical battles–old and new– about the nature of inductive-statistical inference and the roles of probability in statistical inference and modeling. These philosophical issues simmer below the surface in competing views about the causes of problems and potential remedies. If statistical consumers are unaware of assumptions behind rival evidence-policy reforms, they cannot scrutinize the consequences that affect them (in personalized medicine, psychology, law, and so on). Critically reflecting on proposed reforms and changing standards requires insights from statisticians, philosophers of science, psychologists, journal editors, economists and practitioners from across the natural and social sciences. This workshop will bring together these interdisciplinary insights–from speakers as well as attendees.

Sponsors/Collaborations:
Sponsors: The Foundation for the Study of Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (E.R.R.O.R.S.); Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), London School of Economics
OrganizersD. Mayo, R. Frigg and M. Harris
Logistician (chief logistics and contact person): Jean Miller

To register/receive notification of updates for the workshop, please fill out the registration/notification form here.

ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshops

The ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop Committee has been hard at work, and we are pleased to announce two more workshops have been approved.  This brings the total number of 2022 ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshops to five!  You can view all of them on the ISHPSSB webpage here:

https://ishpssb.org/meetings#off-year-workshops

Please note the new website for the “Echoes of Scientific Thought in Society” workshop, and the upcoming Apr. 30 CFP for “Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences XI.”

Our two new workshops:

Sustainable Practices Workshop

University of Minnesota, June 10, 2022 (virtual)

EASPLS 2022 (European Advanced School in Philosophy of the Life Sciences): “Dealing with Complexity in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences”

Institute for Philosophy in Biology & Medicine, ImmunoConcEpT lab, and University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, Sept. 5-9, 2022 (in-person)

Website https://www.philinbiomed.org/event/easpls-bordeaux-2022/


This adds to the previously approved workshops:

Echoes of scientific thought in society: the late 19th century-early 20th century ‘race science’ in Argentina and Brazil

University of São Paulo, Brazil, Sep. 19-23, 2022. (virtual)

Website: https://19racialtheoriesla.wixsite.com/racialtheories (NEW WEBSITE!)

A triple helix: metaphor, society, and the science of evolution. A workshop in memory of Richard Lewontin

UNAM, Mexico, Oct. 3-7, 2022. (hybrid)

Contact information: David Suárez Pascal (david.suarez@ciencias.unam.mx)

Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences XI (PBCS XI)

University of Salamanca, Spain, Nov. 3-4, 2022 (in-person)

Contact information: PBCSXI@usal.es.

Website: https://pbcsxiworkshop.wordpress.com/

Call for Participation (deadline April 30): https://pbcsxiworkshop.wordpress.com/cfp/

Thanks to all the organizers of these workshops for their hard work.  Please share with your interested colleagues and students.

Best,

Your ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop Committee,

  • Matt Haber, University of Utah (chair)
  • Alex Aylward, University of Oxford
  • Jenny Bangham, Queen Mary University of London
  • Luciana Garbayo, University of Central Florida
  • Vivette García Deister, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
  • Eva Guadalupe Hernández Avilez, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
  • Maria Elice de Brzezinski Prestes, Universidade de São Paulo
  • Lucia Neco, University of Western Australia
  • Charles Pence, Université catholique de Louvain
  • Javier Suárez, Universit of Oviedo

2022 AusSTS workshop

Decorative abstract image

The Call for Applications for the 2022 AusSTS workshop is now open: https://aussts.wordpress.com/aussts2022/

It will be a multi-sited event, with in-person nodes in Melbourne, Sydney, Darwin and Wellington NZ.

The workshop will take place on the 28th and 29th of July 2022.

Theme: Generation

Plenary: Anne Pollock (King’s College London)

Intergenerational Plenary: Hana Burgess (UoA), Mythily Meher (UoA), Billy van Uitregt (VUW)

Please do spread the word to HDR candidates and ECRs that you think may be interested in applying. Applications close 30 May.

Thank you all

Very Best,
Roberta

Roberta Pala, coordinator for AusSTS

AusSTS 2020 Online Workshop Series

The AusSTS Workshop is an annual workshop meeting aimed at PhD/ECR researchers from across Australasia interested in STS research. Like many events this year, our AusSTS2020 workshop plans (originally scheduled for July in Darwin) have inevitably been postponed. While we're sad we won't be able to see you all in person, we're still committed to providing opportunities for STS researchers to meet new people and connect with each other, especially at a time when there are fewer occasions than ever to do so.

This online workshop series is broken into 4 weeks: 1 x keynote session, 3 x interactive workshop sessions.

Register for a single event or all of them. Whatever works for you 🙂

Each session has a different theme and is facilitated by a different group of STS researchers. These sessions broadly ask: what does "participating" in research look like since COVID-19? While COVID-19 has closed access off to some archives, how might new archives now be made available? And finally, how might we use this current moment as a starting point to rethink what "business as usual" research might look like?

Download full programme PDF

AusSTS-Workshop-2020-FA


Schedule Overview

Thurs 16 Jul, 10am - 11:30am AEST:
Keynote address: Associate Professor Adia Benton (Register here)

Thurs 23 Jul, 10am - 11:30am AEST:
Session 1: Participating in research now (Register here)

Thurs 30 Jul, 10am - 11:30am AEST:
Session 2: Digital life as an archive (Register here)

Thurs 6 Aug, 10am - 11: 30am AEST:
Session 3: Disruption, opportunity and re/arranging STS research (Register here)

ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop 2018: Registration Open

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

We are pleased to announce the opening of registration for the 2018 ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop, Regeneration Across Complex Living Systems: From Regenerating Microbiomes to Ecosystems Resiliency, which will be held at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA on October 22nd and 23rd, 2018.

Registration for the Workshop is available here and also at the ISH Off-Year website: https://2018ishregeneration.wordpress.com/.

This website contains a draft program as well as preliminary logistics and information about Woods Hole, including travel information and links to housing options aside from the MBL's own campus housing. The Off-Year Workshop website will be updated continuously as we get closer tothe Workshop dates.

Please note that registration for the 2018 ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshopcloses at MIDNIGHT (EST) on SEPTEMBER 12TH, 2018.

It will be difficult to accommodate travel assistance requests, MBL housing requests, and meal requests after this date. Expenses for housing and meals while at the MBL will be covered for graduate students, and we will also be able to provide some travel assistance to both graduate students and post docs. Requests for travel assistance can be submitted during the registration process.

Finally, please note that all participants in the 2018 ISH Off-Year Workshop will also need to register with the MBL campus in order to receive an ID card, which will allow access to the MBL campus and cafeteria. The deadline for this campus registration is October 5th, 2018.Once you register for the 2018 ISH Off-Year Workshop by midnight (EST) on September 12th, 2018, an e-mail will be sent to you with instructions on howto complete the MBL campus registration.

Please feel free to circulate this information widely, and as always, do not hesitate to contact us with any questions. We look forward to welcoming you to the MBL!

Warmly,

Kathryn Maxson Jones (kmaxson@princeton.edu)
Kate MacCord (kmaccord@mbl.edu)
Workshop Coordinators

History and Philosophy of Science Winter [Northern Summer] School: History of Psychiatry, Past Trends, Future Directions

History and Philosophy of Science Winter [Northern Summer] School: History of Psychiatry, Past Trends, Future Directions

History of Psychiatry, Past Trends, Future Directions

13-17 August 2018, University of Sydney

We invite applications from graduate students and early-career researchers in the history and social studies of science and biomedicine, and related fields, for a five-day (southern-hemisphere) winter school focusing on scholarship in the history of psychiatry. This is an excellent opportunity for young scholars interested in some of the more exciting recent developments in the history, sociology, and anthropology of medicine, in particular those scholars seeking to integrate various approaches in the interdisciplinary analysis of psychiatry and its history.

The history of psychiatry has attracted sustained attention by historians of medicine over the past several decades. The attention to psychiatry was partly caused by broader public debates about the role of psychiatry in modern societies. During the 1970s, for example, critics such as Thomas Szasz condemned psychiatry as a pseudo-branch of medicine and as a tool of modern societies to force individuals to conform to arbitrary social standards or to forcibly confine them to mental hospitals which Erving Gofman characterised as total institutions akin to prisons and concentration camps. The historical/philosophical work of Michel Foucault contributed to these characterisations as well. These views greatly contributed to historical research on the history of psychiatry.

How relevant are the approaches to the history of psychiatry inspired by these critical views today? After deinstitutionalisation, there are hardly any mental hospitals left, the influence of psychoanalysis has greatly declined, and psychiatrists appear to focus more on psychopharmacology than on psychotherapy. During this winter school, we will evaluate past and current research on the history of psychiatry, discuss promising new trends, and focus on topics that we expect will be relevant in the near future. Topics that will be discussed include: Modern Research on Insane Asylums and Mental Hospitals; Colonial and Post-Colonial Psychiatry; Diagnosing Populations: Psychiatric Epidemiology; Deinstitutionalisation and community psychiatry; Trauma: Experience, Explanations, and Treatments.

We are looking forward to discussing these issues and many others, according to the interests of participants. Through a mix of seminars, small group discussions, and case studies, graduate students and early-career researchers will become acquainted with the most interesting research in the history of psychiatry. The workshop faculty will illustrate their arguments with examples of their own recent and forthcoming research. We expect participants to shape these discussions and to contribute ideas and examples from their own studies. Additionally, there will be plenty of opportunities to enjoy Sydney’s harbor, beaches, food, and cultural activities.

The winter course will be taught by Mark Micale (University of Illinois), Hans Pols (University of Sydney), and several other local academics with interest in this area.

We have planned this winter school before the conference of the Society for the Social Study of Science, which will take place from 29 August to 1 September. There will be many interesting smaller events in the week preceding that conference.

Applicants should send a CV and a brief description (maximum one page) of their research interests, and how they relate to the topic of the Winter School, to hps.admin@sydney.edu.au (with a subject heading “Winter School Application”). Closing date is May 31, 2018. We will take care of accommodation expenses and meals for the period of the Winter School, but participants (or their institutions) will have to cover their own transport costs.

The Winter School is supported by the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science and the School of History and Philosophy of Science, and the International Research Collaboration Fund of the University of Sydney.

Due date 31 May, 2018