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Exploratory Statistics and Empiricism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Stanley A. Mulaik
Stanley A. Mulaik*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology
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Abstract

Exploratory statistics represents the transformation of a realist theory of statistics held by early nineteenth-century astronomers into an empiricist theory of statistics held by biometricians at the turn of the twentieth century. This paper discusses four key ideas in empiricist thought that influenced the form exploratory statistics took: (1) Baconianism, (2) associationism, (3) the search for cognitive calculi, and (4) phenomenalism.

Some limitations of and alternatives to exploratory statistics as a hypothesis-generating methodology are discussed.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 1985, pp. 410 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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