Jon Williamson
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View article: The heuristic use of conditionalisation
The heuristic use of conditionalisation Open
I provide an example in which Bayesian conditionalisation fails to validate plausible claims about rational permissibility. The example suggests that conditionalisation should be treated as a heuristic principle: useful in many situations,…
View article: The Interplay of Data, Models, and Theories in Machine Learning
The Interplay of Data, Models, and Theories in Machine Learning Open
This paper discusses the role of data within scientific reasoning and as evidence for theoretical claims, arguing for the idea that data can yield theoretically grounded models and be inferred, predicted, or explained from/by such models. …
View article: Explainable AI: definition and attributes of a good explanation for health AI
Explainable AI: definition and attributes of a good explanation for health AI Open
Proposals of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions based on more complex and accurate predictive models are becoming ubiquitous across many disciplines. As the complexity of these models increases, there is a tendency for transparency and…
View article: Editorial
Editorial Open
The Editorial Team welcomes readerst to The Reasoner new home.
View article: Applying Evidential Pluralism to evidence-based law: EBL+
Applying Evidential Pluralism to evidence-based law: EBL+ Open
Evidence-based law seeks to make best use of evidence to assess the effectiveness of laws and regulations. The question arises as to how exactly to make best use of evidence. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism provides an answer t…
View article: Individual consent in cluster randomised trials for non-pharmaceutical interventions: going beyond the Ottawa statement
Individual consent in cluster randomised trials for non-pharmaceutical interventions: going beyond the Ottawa statement Open
This paper discusses the issue of overriding the right of individual consent\nto participation in cluster randomised trials (CRTs). We focus on CRTs\ntesting the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions. As an example,\nwe consider sch…
View article: Evidential Pluralism in the Social Sciences
Evidential Pluralism in the Social Sciences Open
This volume contends that Evidential Pluralism—an account of the epistemology of causation, which maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one needs to establish the existence of a correlation and the existence of a mechanism—ca…
View article: Bayesianism from a philosophical perspective and its application to medicine
Bayesianism from a philosophical perspective and its application to medicine Open
Bayesian philosophy and Bayesian statistics have diverged in recent years, because Bayesian philosophers have become more interested in philosophical problems other than the foundations of statistics and Bayesian statisticians have become …
View article: Objective Bayesian Nets for Integrating Consistent Datasets
Objective Bayesian Nets for Integrating Consistent Datasets Open
This paper addresses a data integration problem: given several mutually consistent datasets each of which measures a subset of the variables of interest, how can one construct a probabilistic model that fits the data and gives reasonable a…
View article: One philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus tollens: Pantomemes and nisowir
One philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus tollens: Pantomemes and nisowir Open
That one person's modus ponens is another's modus tollens is the bane of philosophy because it strips many philosophical arguments of their persuasive force. The problem is that philosophical arguments become mere pantomemes : arguments th…
View article: Applying Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences
Applying Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences Open
Evidential Pluralism maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one normally needs to establish the existence of an appropriate conditional correlation and the existence of an appropriate mechanism complex, so when assessing a cau…
View article: A Bayesian Account of Establishing
A Bayesian Account of Establishing Open
When a proposition is established, it can be taken as evidence for other propositions. Can the Bayesian theory of rational belief and action provide an account of establishing? I argue that it can, but only if the Bayesian is willing to en…
View article: Towards the entropy-limit conjecture
Towards the entropy-limit conjecture Open
The maximum entropy principle is widely used to determine non-committal probabilities on a finite domain, subject to a set of constraints, but its application to continuous domains is notoriously problematic. This paper concerns an interme…
View article: The use of mechanistic reasoning in assessing coronavirus interventions
The use of mechanistic reasoning in assessing coronavirus interventions Open
Rationale Evidence‐based medicine (EBM), the dominant approach to assessing the effectiveness of clinical and public health interventions, focuses on the results of association studies. EBM+ is a development of EBM that systematically cons…
View article: The feasibility and malleability of EBM+
The feasibility and malleability of EBM+ Open
The EBM+ programme is an attempt to improve the way in which present-day evidence-based medicine (EBM) assesses causal claims: according to EBM+, mechanistic studies should be scrutinised alongside association studies. This paper addresses…
View article: The Principal Principle and subjective Bayesianism
The Principal Principle and subjective Bayesianism Open
This paper poses a problem for Lewis’ Principal Principle in a subjective Bayesian framework: we show that, where chances inform degrees of belief, subjective Bayesianism fails to validate normal informal standards of what is reasonable. T…
View article: The IARC Monographs: Updated Procedures for Modern and Transparent Evidence Synthesis in Cancer Hazard Identification
The IARC Monographs: Updated Procedures for Modern and Transparent Evidence Synthesis in Cancer Hazard Identification Open
The Monographs produced by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) apply rigorous procedures for the scientific review and evaluation of carcinogenic hazards by independent experts. The Preamble to the IARC Monographs, which…
View article: Evidential Proximity, Independence, and the evaluation of carcinogenicity
Evidential Proximity, Independence, and the evaluation of carcinogenicity Open
This paper analyses the methods of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) for evaluating the carcinogenicity of various agents. I identify two fundamental evidential principles that underpin these methods, which I call Evid…