The Anthropic Principle in Statistics and Science (my talk this Mon 29 June, 4:20pm London time)

The Anthropic Principle in Statistics and Science The anthropic principle in physics states that our existence implies certain constraints on the natural conditions under which we evolved. In statistics, a corresponding anthropic principle can be used to infer properties of the models we should fit to data. For example, experiments are typically aimed to have a precision sufficient to estimate effects of interest but without overkill; it is rare to have an estimate that is 10 standard errors from zero. We demonstrate through several examples in social and medical sciences how the anthropic principle, combined with Bayesian inference, can be used to improve statistical practice. Here are a couple of applications of the idea: • [2000] Should we take measurements at an intermediate design point? • [2022] A proposal for informative default priors scaled by the standard error of estimates (with Erik van Zwet) In my talk I’ll discuss these and other examples. I think this anthropic…