Very interesting. I had not known of Halley's contribution to actuarial science. One minor point: Caspar Neumann lived in Breslau (now Wrocław) which during his lifetime was in the County of Silesia, in the Kingdom of Bohemia, under the rule of the Habsburg Monarchy. His native language was German, but he was also obviously also fluent in Latin.
...& a post-script on the value of forecasting and insurance. Surely one of the most shameful articles that took up two full issues of what became the american economic review was hoffman's article on race traits & the american negro, which `showed,' rigorously that mortality rates were much higher among african americans compared to whites--and that this was a facet of race rather than SES. DuBois was one of the few academics to vociferously object to this.
The article provided exactly the fodder that the insurance companies needed to justify increasing premiums for african americans. From 1875 to 1881, african americans purchased life insurance in large numbers and that collapsed soon after. I (try to) make my students read the entire two volume article, which just seeps of intense scientific racism from the very first page. Megan Wolff has written a wonderful article on this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1497788/
I have always thought of this when I think of what is acceptable in a forecast, and how the forecaster has to play the role of a good new sports statistic, that accords with common wisdom 95% of the time and surprises the other 5.%.....
If confirmation is fundamentally illogical (affirming the consequent), then what is the value of quantitative (logical) tools for prediction? Why is quantitative prediction persuasive?
However it is basic, the meaning and mechanics of “p implies q” is not understood by many. In addition to Ben’s point above, taking “not p implies not q” as granted with “p implies q” is also a common crime.
I put the blame on the lack of proof based education in engineering dept’s, if there were some room for the discussion of necessary and sufficient conditions, perhaps there could be a dialogue even in the political circles of USA!
Very interesting. I had not known of Halley's contribution to actuarial science. One minor point: Caspar Neumann lived in Breslau (now Wrocław) which during his lifetime was in the County of Silesia, in the Kingdom of Bohemia, under the rule of the Habsburg Monarchy. His native language was German, but he was also obviously also fluent in Latin.
...& a post-script on the value of forecasting and insurance. Surely one of the most shameful articles that took up two full issues of what became the american economic review was hoffman's article on race traits & the american negro, which `showed,' rigorously that mortality rates were much higher among african americans compared to whites--and that this was a facet of race rather than SES. DuBois was one of the few academics to vociferously object to this.
The article provided exactly the fodder that the insurance companies needed to justify increasing premiums for african americans. From 1875 to 1881, african americans purchased life insurance in large numbers and that collapsed soon after. I (try to) make my students read the entire two volume article, which just seeps of intense scientific racism from the very first page. Megan Wolff has written a wonderful article on this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1497788/
I have always thought of this when I think of what is acceptable in a forecast, and how the forecaster has to play the role of a good new sports statistic, that accords with common wisdom 95% of the time and surprises the other 5.%.....
If confirmation is fundamentally illogical (affirming the consequent), then what is the value of quantitative (logical) tools for prediction? Why is quantitative prediction persuasive?
We've got a semester to figure it out!
Missed opportunity to title this post Halley’s Comment
However it is basic, the meaning and mechanics of “p implies q” is not understood by many. In addition to Ben’s point above, taking “not p implies not q” as granted with “p implies q” is also a common crime.
I put the blame on the lack of proof based education in engineering dept’s, if there were some room for the discussion of necessary and sufficient conditions, perhaps there could be a dialogue even in the political circles of USA!