The Annals of Statistics

John W. Tukey as "philosopher"

A. P. Dempster

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Abstract

Although not a traditional philosopher, John Tukey contributed much to our understanding of statistical science and empirical science more broadly. The former is represented by the light he shed on the relation of drawing conclusions to making decisions, and of how simple concepts like significance and confidence serve to back up or "confirm" empirical findings. Less successfully, he attempted inconclusively to sort out the ambiguities of R. A. Fisher's fiducial argument. His main effort, however, went to creating "exploratory data analysis" or EDA as a subfield of statistics with much to offer to ongoing developments in data mining and data visualization.

Article information

Source
Ann. Statist. Volume 30, Number 6 (2002), 1619-1628.

Dates
First available in Project Euclid: 23 January 2003

Permanent link to this document
http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aos/1043351249

Digital Object Identifier
doi:10.1214/aos/1043351249

Mathematical Reviews number (MathSciNet)
MR1969442

Zentralblatt MATH identifier
1020.62003

Subjects
Primary: 62A01: Foundations and philosophical topics 62-07: Data analysis 62F03: Hypothesis testing 01A70: Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies

Keywords
Conclusions decisions confirmatory exploratory Fisher Neyman Bayes

Citation

Dempster, A. P. John W. Tukey as "philosopher". Ann. Statist. 30 (2002), no. 6, 1619--1628. doi:10.1214/aos/1043351249. http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aos/1043351249.


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References

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