Open AccessLies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (in Geology)
Author(s) -
Vermeesch Pieter
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2009eo470004
Subject(s) - falsifiability , critical rationalism , epistemology , range (aeronautics) , statistical hypothesis testing , karl popper , rationalism , test (biology) , philosophy , mathematical economics , statistics , econometrics , mathematics , geology , paleontology , engineering , aerospace engineering
According to Karl Popper's epistemology of critical rationalism, scientists should formulate falsifiable hypotheses rather than produce ad hoc answers to empirical observations. In other words, we should predict and test rather than merely explain [ Popper , 1959]. Sometimes, statistical tests such as chisquare, t , or Kolmogorov‐Smirnov are used to make deductions more “objective.” Such tests are used in a wide range of geological subdisciplines [see Reimann and Filzmoser , 2000; Anderson and Johnson , 1999; Lørup et al., 1998; Sircombe and Hazelton , 2004].