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PhilErrorStat: LSE:3 weeks (Nov-Dec) 2011

Deborah G. Mayo is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Virginia Tech and holds a visiting appointment at the Center for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science of the London School of Economics. She is the author of Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge, which won the 1998 Lakatos Prize, awarded to the most outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science during the previous six years.  She applies her approach toward solving key problems in philosophy of science: underdetermination, the role of novel evidence, Duhem's problem, and the nature of scientific progress. Dr. Mayo is also interested in applications to problems in risk analysis and risk controversies, and has co-edited Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management (with Rachelle Hollander). Dr. Mayo teaches courses in introductory and advanced logic (including the metatheory of logic and modal logic), in scientific method, and in philosophy of science. She also teaches special topics courses in Science and Technology Studies.

Complete list of Publications

Presentation Slides

Books

• Error and Inference: Recent Exchanges on Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management, co-edited with R.D. Hollander, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Some Recent Articles

• Mayo, D. (2014) “On the Birnbaum Argument for the Strong Likelihood Principle,” (with discussion and rejoinder) Statistical Science, 29(2), 227-239, 261-266.

• Mayo D. and Cox, D. R. (2011) “Statistical Scientist Meets a Philosopher of Science: A Conversation with Sir David Cox” in Rationality, Markets and Morals: Studies at the Intersection of Philosophy and Economics, (M. Albert, H. Lkiemt and B. Lahno eds), An open access journal publiched by the Frankfurt School: Verlag. Volume 2 (2011), 103-114. http://www.rmm-journal.de/downloads/Article_Cox_Mayo.pdf

• Mayo, D. and Spanos, A. (2011) "Error Statistics" in Philosophy of Statistics , Handbook of Philosophy of Science Volume 7 Philosophy of Statistics, (Volume eds. Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay and Malcolm R. Forster. General editors: Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard and John Woods) Elsevier: 1-46.

• Mayo, D. (2010). "Error, Severe Testing, and the Growth of Theoretical Knowledge" in Error and Inference: Recent Exchanges on Experimental Reasoning, Reliability and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (D. Mayo and A. Spanos eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 28-57.

• Mayo, D. (2010). "An Error in the Argument from Conditionality and Sufficiency to the Likelihood Principle" in Error and Inference: Recent Exchanges on Experimental Reasoning, Reliability and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (D Mayo and A. Spanos eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 305-14.
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• Cox D. R. and Mayo. D. (2010). "Objectivity and Conditionality in Frequentist Inference" in Error and Inference: Recent Exchanges on Experimental Reasoning, Reliability and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (D Mayo and A. Spanos eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 276-304.

• Mayo, D. (2008). “How to Discount Double-Counting When It Counts: Some Clarifications,” British Journal of Philosophy of Science, 59: 857–879.

• Mayo, D. (2008). Some Methodological Issues in Experimental Economics, Philosophy of Science, 75: 633-645.

• Mayo, D. and Spanos, A. (2008). "Risks to Health and Risks to Science: The Need for a Responsible 'Bioevidential Scrutiny,'" Biological effects of low Level Exposures, Newsletter 14(3): 18-22.

• Mayo, D. (2006). "Critical Rationalism and Its Failure to Withstand Critical Scrutiny," in C. Cheyne and J. Worrall (eds.) Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave, Kluwer Series Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Springer: The Netherlands: 63-99.

• Mayo, D. and Cox, D. R. (2006) "Frequentists Statistics as a Theory of Inductive Inference," Optimality: The Second Erich L. Lehmann Symposium(ed. J. Rojo), Lecture Notes-Monograph series, Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), Vol. 49: 77-97.

• Mayo, D. and Spanos, A. (2006). "Severe Testing as a Basic Concept in a Neyman-Pearson Philosophy of Induction" British Journal of Philosophy of Science, 57: 323-357.

• Mayo, D. (2005). "Evidence as Passing Severe Tests: Highly Probable versus Highly Probed Hypotheses" in P. Achinstein (ed.), Scientific Evidence, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 95-127.

• Mayo, D. (2005). Peircean Induction and the Error-Correcting Thesis," in R. Mayorga (guest ed.) Peirce-spectives on Metaphysics and the Sciences, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society: 299-319.

• Mayo, D (2004). "Models of Error and the Limits of Experimental testing," in M. Carrier, g. Massey, and L. Reutsche (eds.) Science at Century's End: Philosophical Questions on the Progress and Limits of Science. Pittsburgh-Konstanz Series in the Philosophy and History of Science. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press: 179-188.

• Mayo, D. (2003). "Severe Testing as a Guide for Inductive Learning," in H. Kyburg (ed.), Probability Is the Very Guide in Life. Chicago: Open Court: 89-117.

Regular Classes

• Philosophy 2605: Reason and Revolution
• Philosophy 5506: Metalogic
• Philosophy 6334: Advanced Topics in the Philosophy of Science