SSS will be held in Spring 2021.

The Importance to Society: Decisions and Planning Need Science

• When is science relevant
• Belief in a common, shared reality

Science’s View of Reality

• Our senses and instrumentation
• Systematic and Statistical Uncertainty and ”Scientific Optimism”

Causal Reasoning: Why Statistics?

• Causal Reasoning 1: Correlation and Causation, “variables” and “interventions”, reliability (reproducibility) and validity
• Finding signal in noise
• Seeing patterns in random noise
• False positives/negatives

Calculus of Tentative Propositions

• Assigning Credence levels to propositions and using them
• Calibration of Credence levels

Sanity Checks

• Orders of understanding
• Fermi problems

“Cold” Biases

• Heuristics
• Biases
• Heuristics vs. Biases

“Hot” Biases and Other Topics

• Mismeasure of man; science and ethics
• Pathological science and Pseudoscience

Synthesis of Topics

• Cross Examination of an Expert Witness
• Causal Reasoning 2: Singular and General Causation, Direct and Indirect Causation

Recognizing Biases and “Good Practice”

• Confirmatory biases in the search for evidence
• Blind Analysis

Group Thinking

• Wisdom of Crowds vs. Herd Thinking
• Ways that groups fall short of their optimal ability and ways to do better
• Integrating Fact and Value

Can we do Better Together?

• Deliberative Polling
• Scenario Planning