Romero, Felipe (2016) Can the Behavioral Sciences Self-Correct? A Social Epistemic Study. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 60. 55 - 69.
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Abstract
Abstract Advocates of the self-corrective thesis argue that scientific method will refute false theories and find closer approximations to the truth in the long run. I discuss a contemporary interpretation of this thesis in terms of frequentist statistics in the context of the behavioral sciences. First, I identify experimental replications and systematic aggregation of evidence (meta-analysis) as the self-corrective mechanism. Then, I present a computer simulation study of scientific communities that implement this mechanism to argue that frequentist statistics may converge upon a correct estimate or not depending on the social structure of the community that uses it. Based on this study, I argue that methodological explanations of the “replicability crisis” in psychology are limited and propose an alternative explanation in terms of biases. Finally, I conclude suggesting that scientific self-correction should be understood as an interaction effect between inference methods and social structures.
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| Item Type: | Published Article or Volume | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Social structure of science, Social epistemology, Scientific self-correction, Replication, Frequentist statistics | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Experimentation Specific Sciences > Psychology General Issues > Theory Change |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Felipe Romero | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 04 Apr 2017 14:08 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 04 Apr 2017 14:08 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 12957 | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A | ||||||
| Official URL: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S... | ||||||
| DOI or Unique Handle: | 10.1016/j.shpsa.2016.10.002 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Experimentation Specific Sciences > Psychology General Issues > Theory Change |
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| Date: | 2016 | ||||||
| Page Range: | 55 - 69 | ||||||
| Volume: | 60 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/12957 |
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