Abstract
In Salmon's discussion of his account of statistical relevance and statistical explanation there is a peculiarity in the selection of examples. Where he wishes to show that statistical accounts are reasonably treated as explanatory, he draws examples from the social sciences, such as juvenile delinquency. But when he explains the concept of ‘causal’ relevance, the examples are selected from the natural sciences. This conceals difficulties with Salmon's account of causality in the face of multiple causes such as are characteristic of the social sciences. Salmon's account is shown not to escape difficulties associated with Simon's earlier approach.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Clark, Terry N.,Community Power and Policy Outputs, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1973.
Papineau, David,For Science in the Social Sciences, St. Martin's, New York, 1979.
Putnam, Hilary,Meaning and the Moral Sciences, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1978.
Salmon, Merrilee H. and Salmon, Wesley C., ‘Alternative Models of Scientific Explanation’,American Anthropologist 81 (1979), 61–74.
Salmon, Wesley C.,Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1971.
Salmon, Wesley C., ‘Theoretical Explanation’ in Stephan Körner (ed.),Explanation. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1975, pp. 118–145.
Simon, Herbert A., ‘Spurious Correlation: A Causal Interpretation’,Journal of the American Statistical Association 49 (1954), 467–479.
Simon, Herbert A. and Rescher, Nicholas, ‘Cause and Contrafactual’,Philosophy of Science 33 (1966), 323–340.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Turner, S.P. On the relevance of statistical relevance theory. Theor Decis 14, 195–205 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133977
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133977