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Category Archives: Philosophy
“Google’s Philosopher”
That is the title of this intriguing essay by Robert Herritt in the Pacific Standard — our favorite e-mag, by the way — summarizing the “philosophy of information” as well as the original work of Luciano Floridi, an Oxford philosopher who is inventing “entirely new ways … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law, Philosophy, Property Rights, Questions Rarely Asked
Tagged Coase, Facebook, Google+, Information Markets, Privacy, Right to be forgotten
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Is science a pyramid or a circle?
These images appear in Scott Alexander’s blog post “The control group is out of control.” (By the way, props to Cliff for bringing Alexander’s important post to our attention.) Back to Alexander’s post. He writes (the last ellipsis is in the original): … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Science
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“Trolley problems”
That is the title of our latest paper — in which we offer a novel solution to the famous Trolley Problem from moral and legal philosophy — just published in the Drake Law Review Discourse. (You may also click directly on the image … Continue reading
Testing our scientific tests
We recently reviewed the abstract and slides of Deborah Mayo’s 3 Dec. 2014 presentation at Rutgers University. Her excellent talk was titled “Probing with severity: beyond Bayesian probabilism and frequentist performance.” (Both the abstract and the slides of her lecture … Continue reading
Was Holmes a Bayesian?
Not that Holmes. This one. In our previous blog post (11/14/14), we promised to explain why our defense of Bayesian methods is relevant to law. After all, how is probability theory generally or any of the foregoing specifically — i.e. Hájek’s analysis … Continue reading
The Wikipedia Paradox
According to Wikipedia (citations omitted): “Ignore All Rules” is a “favorite” rule of the English-language open content encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Its formulation is generally (emphasis in original), “If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.” Wikipedia has … Continue reading
Ideological Turing Tests
Now that the midterm elections in the U.S. — as well as the presidential contest in Brasil — are finally over, can you pass an Ideological Turing Test? For example, let’s say you support gay marriage or oppose legalizing the sale of marijuana. Could you … Continue reading
“Grow the brain before the beard”
The Tunisian protestor in this picture is holding a sign that reads “Grow the beard before the brain.” This is the best critique of ethical fundamentalism that we have seen in a long time. Hat tip to Strum-Me for the pointer.
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Ethics, Philosophy
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Adjudication and the Turing Test
Legal trials resemble the Turing Test in many ways. First, let’s restate the original version of the Turing Test and then compare this test to the process of adjudication.
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Games, Law, Philosophy, Probability
Tagged Adjudication, Turing Test
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The “Paradox of the Gatecrasher” is not a paradox
There is a sizable scholarly literature discussing the so-called “Paradox of the Gatecrasher,” a simple thought experiment introduced many years ago by British philosopher L. Jonathan Cohen, an evidence problem designed to test the proper role of statistics in law. (For a … Continue reading
prior probability 