"Golf day 2005 @ federal golf club, red hill." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (196), pp. 7.

Jim Joyce argues for two amendments to probabilism. The first is the doctrine that credences are rational, or not, in virtue of their accuracy or “closeness to the truth” (1998). The second is a shift from a numerically precise model of belief to an imprecise model represented by a set of probability functions (2010). We argue that both amendments cannot be satisfied simultaneously. To do so, we employ a (slightly-generalized) impossibility theorem of Seidenfeld, Schervish, and Kadane (2012), who show that (...) there is no strictly proper scoring rule for imprecise probabilities. -/- The question then is what should give way. Joyce, who is well aware of this no-go result, thinks that a quantifiability constraint on epistemic accuracy should be relaxed to accommodate imprecision. We argue instead that another Joycean assumption — called strict immodesty— should be rejected, and we prove a representation theorem that characterizes all “mildly” immodest measures of inaccuracy. (shrink)

A number of authors have recently put forward arguments pro or contra various rules for scoring probability estimates. In doing so, they have skipped over a potentially important consideration in making such assessments, to wit, that the hypotheses whose probabilities are estimated can approximate the truth to different degrees. Once this is recognized, it becomes apparent that the question of how to assess probability estimates depends heavily on context.

It is commonly assumed that when we assign different credences to a proposition, a perfect compromise between our opinions simply ‘splits the difference’ between our credences. I introduce and defend an alternative account, namely that a perfect compromise maximizes the average of the expected epistemic values that we each assign to alternative credences in the disputed proposition. I compare the compromise strategy I introduce with the traditional strategy of compromising by splitting the difference, and I argue that my strategy is (...) a reasonable characterization of epistemic compromise. (shrink)

Consider an election in which each of the n voters casts a vote consisting of a strict preference ranking of the three candidates A, B, and C. In the limit as n→∞, which scoring rule maximizes, under the assumption of Impartial Anonymous Culture (uniform probability distribution over profiles), the probability that the Condorcet candidate wins the election, given that a Condorcet candidate exists? We produce an analytic solution, which is not the Borda Count. Our result agrees with recent numerical results (...) from two independent studies, and contradicts a published result of Van Newenhizen (Economic Theory 2, 69–83. (1992)). (shrink)

Research in the field of management has increasingly focused on strategies and tools related to corporate sustainability. Of the tools examined, codes of ethics have been found to play a primary role. Many studies have investigated the content of such codes, as well as their capacity to condition the behaviour of people within organizations. However, few studies have considered the intrinsic quality of codes of ethics. This study aims to investigate the impact that specific factors—firm size, degree of internationalization and (...) industry effect—can have on the quality of codes of ethics. Based on a sample of 248 listed Italian companies, the results of the empirical analysis show that the quality standard is particularly high in larger companies and in those firms operating in industries in which relationships established with critical stakeholders—and disclosure to those stakeholders—play a crucial role. These results have interesting implications for both researchers and practitioners. (shrink)

De Finetti introduced the concept of coherent previsions and conditional previsions through a gambling argument and through a parallel argument based on a quadratic scoring rule. He shows that the two arguments lead to the same concept of coherence. When dealing with events only, there is a rich class of scoring rules which might be used in place of the quadratic scoring rule. We give conditions under which a general strictly proper scoring rule can replace the quadratic scoring rule while (...) preserving the equivalence of de Finetti’s two arguments. In proving our results, we present a strengthening of the usual minimax theorem. We also present generalizations of de Finetti’s fundamental theorem of prevision to deal with conditional previsions. (shrink)

There are few examples in the literature of objective measures for the assessment of donor willingness. The author describes the scoring system in use at his own renal transplant unit which has brought objectivity to the process of determining the willingness of living related donors. In this system, a total score to determine the degree of willingness or unwillingness is calculated based on responses to a series of questions. The author believes that with minor modifications this system could be implemented (...) by transplant units in different countries and cultures to screen out donors who are acting under duress. (shrink)

The score of Piece Four of Sylvano Bussotti's Five Piano Pieces for David Tudor is the most important image in A Thousand Plateaus. It serves as a prefatory image not only to the Rhizome plateau, but also to the work as a whole. It functions as the book's musical score, guiding readers in their performance of the text. Embracing John Cage's graphism and aleatory practices, Bussotti created his own ‘aserial’ new music, one that celebrated passion and Bussotti's open homosexuality. The (...) visual elements of Piece Four include a deterritorialisation of the standard piano score, a diagram of the composition's abstract machine, and a drawing that Bussotti had produced ten years before writing Five Piano Pieces for David Tudor. The drawing itself is a rhizomic artwork, with details that echo visual motifs throughout A Thousand Plateaus. The superimposition of the drawing on the deterritorialised framework of the standard piano score conjoins the visible and the audible, faciality and the refrain, in a single artefact. (shrink)

It is a hotly contested issue whether polygenic scores should play a major role in the social sciences. Here, we defend a methodologically pluralist stance in which sociogenomics should abandon its hype and recognize that it suffers from all the methodological difficulties of the social sciences, yet nevertheless maintain an optimistic stance toward a more cautious use.

In this response, I focus on clarifying my arguments, highlighting consensus, and addressing competing views about the utility of polygenic scores (PGSs) for social science. I also discuss an assortment of expansions to my arguments and suggest alternative approaches. I conclude by reiterating the need for caution and appropriate scientific skepticism.

There is an ongoing debate about which rule we ought to use for scoring probability estimates. Much of this debate has been premised on scoring-rule monism, according to which there is exactly one best scoring rule. In previous work, I have argued against this position. The argument given there was based on purely a priori considerations, notably the intuition that scoring rules should be sensitive to truthlikeness relations if, and only if, such relations are present among whichever hypotheses are at (...) issue. The present paper offers a new, quasi-empirical argument against scoring-rule monism. This argument uses computational simulations to show that different scoring rules can have different economical consequences, depending on the context of use. (shrink)

Thomas Richardson and Peter Spirtes. Scoring Ancestral Graph Models.

Structural equation model trees are data-driven tools for finding variables that predict group differences in SEM parameters. SEM trees build upon the decision tree paradigm by growing tree structures that divide a data set recursively into homogeneous subsets. In past research, SEM trees have been estimated predominantly with the R package semtree. The original algorithm in the semtree package selects split variables among covariates by calculating a likelihood ratio for each possible split of each covariate. Obtaining these likelihood ratios is (...) computationally demanding. As a remedy, we propose to guide the construction of SEM trees by a family of score-based tests that have recently been popularized in psychometrics. These score-based tests monitor fluctuations in case-wise derivatives of the likelihood function to detect parameter differences between groups. Compared to the likelihood-ratio approach, score-based tests are computationally efficient because they do not require refitting the model for every possible split. In this paper, we introduce score-guided SEM trees, implement them in semtree, and evaluate their performance by means of a Monte Carlo simulation. (shrink)

Polygenic scores (PGSs) have several limitations. They are confounded with environmental effects on behavior and cannot be used to study how mutations affect brain function and behavior. For this, mutations with large effects, which often arise in only one geographical population are needed. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs), commonly used for identifying mutations, have difficulty detecting these mutations. A strategy that overcomes this challenge is discussed.

Polygenic scores cannot elucidate the mechanisms that produce behavioral phenotypes (including “intelligence”). Therefore, they are unlikely to yield helpful interventions. Moreover, they are poor predictors of individuals' developmental outcomes. Burt's critique is well-supported by the details of molecular biology. Specifically, experiences affect epigenetic factors that influence phenotypes via how the genome functions, a fact that lends support to Burt's conclusions.

This paper explores the interpretation and use of polygenic risk scores (PRSs). We argue that PRSs generally do not directly embody causal information. Nonetheless, they can assist us in tracking other causal relationships concerning genetic effects. Although their purely predictive/correlational use is important, it is this tracking feature that contributes to their potential usefulness in other applications, such as genetic dissection, and their use as controls, which allow us, indirectly, to "see" more clearly the role of environmental variables.