John Worrall

Bio: John Worrall is an academic researcher from London School of Economics and Political Science. The author has contributed to research in topics: Philosophy of science & Scientific realism. The author has an hindex of 24, co-authored 62 publications receiving 4157 citations.

Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery

Abstract: Imre Lakatos's Proofs and Refutations is an enduring classic, which has never lost its relevance. Taking the form of a dialogue between a teacher and some students, the book considers various solutions to mathematical problems and, in the process, raises important questions about the nature of mathematical discovery and methodology. Lakatos shows that mathematics grows through a process of improvement by attempts at proofs and critiques of these attempts, and his work continues to inspire mathematicians and philosophers aspiring to develop a philosophy of mathematics that accounts for both the static and the dynamic complexity of mathematical practice. With a specially commissioned Preface written by Paolo Mancosu, this book has been revived for a new generation of readers.

Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds?*

Abstract: Summary The main argument for scientific realism is that our present theories in science are so successful empirically that they can’t have got that way by chance - instead they must somehow have latched onto the blueprint of the universe. The main argument against scientific realism is that there have been enormously successful theories which were once accepted but are now regarded as false. The central question addressed in this paper is whether there is some reasonable way to have the best of both worlds: to give the argument from scientific revolutions its full weight and yet still adopt some sort of realist attitude towards presently accepted theories in physics and elsewhere. I argue that there is such a way - through strucfurul realism, a position adopted by PoincarC, and here elaborated and defended. Resume L’argument principal en faveur du realisme scientifique, c’est que nos theories scientifiques actuelles sont empiriquement si efficaces que cela ne peut pas Etre di3 au hasard - on doit en quelque sorte avoir decouvert les plans de I’univers. L’argument principal contre le realisme scientifique, c’est qu’il y a eu des theories scientifiques massivement efficaces qui ont ete autrefois tenues pour vraies mais sont considerkes aujourd’hui comme fausses. La principale question traitee dans ce papier, c’est s’il y a un moyen raisonnable de prendre le meilleur des deux mondes: de donner tout son poids a l’argument tire des revolutions scientifiques et d’adopter pourtant une sorte d’attitude realiste a I’egard des theories actuellement acceptkes en physique ou ailleurs. Je rnontre qu’une telle voie existe: le realisme sfrucfurel, une position adoptke par Poincare, que je defends et dkveloppe ici. Zusammenfassung Das Hauptargument fur wissenschaftlichen Realismus ist, dass unsere gegenwartigen Theorien in der Wissenschaft empirisch so erfolgreich sind, dass sie nicht zuftilligerweise so geworden sein kdnnen - statt dessen miissen sie irgendwie mit dem Plan des Universums Ubereinstimmen. Das Hauptargument gegen den wissenschaftlichen Realismus ist, dass es ausgesprochen erfolgreiche Theorien gegeben hat, die einmal akzeptiert gewesen waren, aber jetzt als falsch betrachtet werden. Die in diesem Papier behandelte Kernfrage lautet, ob es einen verniinftigen Weg gibt, aus beiden Weltcn das Beste zu haben: dem Argument vom Vorhandensein wissenschaftlicher Revolutionen sein volles Gewicht zu geben und dennoch eine Art von realistischer Einstellung gegeniiber den heute in der Physik und anderswo akzeptierten Theorien einzunehmen. Ich argumentiere, dass es einen solchen Weg gibt - durch den von Poincart iibernommenen strukturellen Realismus, der hier ausgearbeitet und verteidigt wird.

What Evidence in Evidence‐Based Medicine?

Abstract: Evidence‐Based Medicine is a relatively new movement that seeks to put clinical medicine on a firmer scientific footing. I take it as uncontroversial that medical practice should be based on best evidence—the interesting questions concern the details. This paper tries to move towards a coherent and unified account of best evidence in medicine, by exploring in particular the EBM position on RCTs (randomized controlled trials).

Why There's No Cause to Randomize

Abstract: The evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is widely regarded as supplying the ‘gold standard’ in medicine—we may sometimes have to settle for other forms of evidence, but this is always epistemically second-best. But how well justified is the epistemic claim about the superiority of RCTs? This paper adds to my earlier (predominantly negative) analyses of the claims produced in favour of the idea that randomization plays a uniquely privileged epistemic role, by closely inspecting three related arguments from leading contributors to the burgeoning field of probabilistic causality—Papineau, Cartwright and Pearl. It concludes that none of these further arguments supplies any practical reason for thinking of randomization as having unique epistemic power.1Introduction2Why the issue is of great practical importance—the ECMO case3Papineau on the ‘virtues of randomization’4Cartwright on causality and the ‘ideal’ randomized experiment5Pearl on randomization, nets and causes6Conclusion

Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises:

Abstract: Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a h...

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

Abstract: What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification -- the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.

Research Methods in Health. Investigating health and health services

Abstract: This new edition of Ann Bowling's well-known and highly respected text has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect key methodological developments in health research. It is a comprehensive, easy to read, guide to the range of methods used to study and evaluate health and health services. It describes the concepts and methods used by the main disciplines involved in health research, including: demography, epidemiology, health economics, psychology and sociology.The research methods described cover the assessment of health needs, morbidity and mortality trends and rates, costing health services, sampling for survey research, cross-sectional and longitudinal survey design, experimental methods and techniques of group assignment, questionnaire design, interviewing techniques, coding and analysis of quantitative data, methods and analysis of qualitative observational studies, and types of unstructured interviewing. With new material on topics such as cluster randomization, utility analyses, patients' preferences, and perception of risk, the text is aimed at students and researchers of health and health services. It has also been designed for health professionals and policy makers who have responsibility for applying research findings in practice, and who need to know how to judge the value of that research.

The Rhetoric of Economics

Abstract: In this revised second edition, Deirdre McCloskey demonstrates how economic discourse employs metaphor, authority, symmetry and other rhetorical means of persuasion. ""The Rhetoric of Economics"" shows economists to be human persuaders and poets of the marketplace, even in their most technical and mathematical moods. It is further enhanced by three new chapters and two new bibliographies.