each meeting put date, people present (Adam and Jason unless noted otherwise), topics discussed, things to do for next time

Thursday 5th Jan

Adam, Jason Discussed: Interpretation of Goodman (pt 2). Yusuf, Collins, Peto paper on large simple RCT Tasks: More precision regarding how interpreting Goodman on wiki; Send Yusuf paper to JG

Wednesday 8th Feb

Adam, Jason Discussed: Peto - stuff; rofecoxib paper and presentation; jeffrey and exchangeability; bayesian trial design (adam’s problem) - need take design into account for both prior and bayes factor.

Wednesday 13th Feb

Adam, Jason Discussed: Power Point slides on rofecoxib — looking good; existence of paper on combining phase II/phase III trials in a Frequentist way (Royston, Parmar, Qian) Statistics in Medicine 2003;22:2239-2256

Tuesday 21 Feb

Adam, Jason Agenda: Jeffrey paper; statistical meaning of “bias” Discussed: Jeffrey review paper — probably don’t bother discussing Dorling in just a few words; instead give a few examples showing that this is only a good book for research, not for teaching; definition of “bias” is confusing; need to talk later about WHY people are confused about the meaning and (separately) the importance of bias To do: Jason to finish commenting on the wiki page on Peto et al; Adam to play with the definition of bias

Tuesday 28 Feb

Adam, Jason Agenda: bias; overall project planning Discussed: public health talk was a raging success; Jeffrey review almost done; bias To do: refresh project proposal using stuff on wiki; write a paper on rofocoxib; think about WiP seminar; write down some thoughts on bias while you can still see the duck

Tuesday 14 March

Adam, Jason Agenda: overall project planning; links between philosophy of probability and philosophy of science Discussed: as above; new project outline is great To do: look at Bas van Fraassen’s papers on his web site etc.; read Berger and Sellke

Wednesday 22 March

Adam, Jason Agenda: look at jeffrey rv and start of rofecoxib; discuss project plan Discussed: new experimentalism; metaphysical underpinning of the distinction between classical and bayesian stats. Remember Jason’s diagram separating statistical methods - AL and JG differing separation but similar divide; continue exploring the divide along beleif in fact-of-the-matter so use error statistics + new experimentalism and the variety of evidence relating to many (infinite) hypotheses of bayesianism. Consider how new experimentalism and bayesianism may fit together.

Wednesday 12 April

Adam, Jason Discussed: rofecoxib WIP seminar; current state of rofecoxib draft To do: keep going

Wednesday 3 May

Adam, Jason Discussed: rofecoxib To do: go back to meeting every week!

Wednesday 17 May

Adam, Jason Discussed: likelihood principle, Mayo’s argument regarding Armitage and whether the bayesian has a problem with sampling to foregone conclusions; and precisely when this is a problem for the bayesian, AAP abstract submission To do: talk this friday about general issues; follow up on Mayo/Armitage argument, send abstract ( Inferences From Medical Trials Should Be Probabilistic )

Friday 19 May

Adam, Jason Discussed: overall thesis plans and possibility of doing more straight philosophy; application for a Sydney scholarship To do: draft of Rof paper by end of May

Wednesday 24 May

Adam, Jason Discussed: details of Mayo’s view of Pearson and related issues To do: draft of Rof paper by end of May; a mathematical version or example of Mayo’s Pearson’s step 2 and how it relates to step 3; Jason to fix this bloody wiki program

Wednesday 31 May Adam, Mark, Jason, Rachael Discussed: overview of progress and plans

Thursday 1 June

Adam, Jason Discussed: Rofecoxib paper To do: deadline for draft moved to 15 June

Wednesday 7 June

Adam, Jason Discussed: Rofecoxib talk preparation (going very well) To do: give Rofecoxib talk; finish Rofecoxib draft paper

Wednesday 21 June

Adam, Jason Discussed: Rofecoxib draft paper, AAP talk — don’t add too much material for AAP, as philosophers expect you to go slowly To do: Jason to comment on draft paper; Adam to continue drafting and also work on AAP talk

Wednesday 12 July

Adam, Jason Discussed: congrats on AAP talk; Rofecoxib draft paper To do: Adam to continue drafting

Thursday 13 July

Adam, Jason Discussed: Rofecoxib draft paper To do: Adam to continue drafting

Tuesday 18 July

Rofecoxib draft paper coming along better, thanks to decision to more or less leave Mayo out of it; will probably do a separate Mayo paper subsequently. Sydney has offered a scholarship; just paperwork remains to be done. To do: Adam continue drafting

Friday 27 July

Invited to an important international conference. Well done! Paper progressing. Current conclusion: classical statistics can’t back up the inferences made in practice, even when they’re sensible. It (therefore?) can’t play the role it claims to play in EBM. To do: Think about p-value functions.

Thursday 7 September

Worrall has commented on Rofecoxib paper. To do: Jason to comment too!

Tuesday 21 November

Update on where various projects are up to. Currently completing presentation for Brussels; send for comment once done. On return finalise rofecoxib paper draft. Next project —EBM, what must it be if it is going to make sense (and what it is almost definitely not)

Monday 11 December

Economics/ethics paper presented in Europe: well done! Possible follow-ups from that: (a) think about future work with economists; (b) email Andrew Thingy. To do for the evidence workshop in January: think about presenting on (a) what EBM ought to be and/or (b) stuff about sub-studies case-control studies. Probably (a), but put in stuff you already know backwards if you’re having trouble thinking of enough to say about (a). To do otherwise: submit short rofecoxib paper.

Wednesday 20 December

Short rofecoxib paper submitted. Long rofecoxib paper new draft due soon. To do: finish next draft of rofecoxib paper.