Modeling: Neutral, Null, and Baseline

Bausman, William C.

doi:10.1086/699021

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(23 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In null modeling, researchers start with a pattern in the world that they want to explain and some original hypothesis that may explain the pattern. They model the hypothesis and compare the output of this "original model" with experimental or observational data (Bausman 2018). Unfortunately, a match between the data and model output cannot confirm the original hypothesis because some other hypothesis researchers have not considered might also match the data.…”

Section: Statistical Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Mate Choice and Null Models

Kovaka¹

2020

Philos. of Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biologists have proposed a variety of explanations for extravagant sexual displays, and controversies over explanations define the history of sexual selection research. Recently, Richard Prum has defended Darwin's idea that the evolution of sexual displays is driven by arbitrary and nonadaptive preferences of potential mates. Prum argues that this explanation should be the null model for sexual selection research. I show that if we adopted Prum's proposal, the inferences we could be justified in making are more modest than he claims. I also discuss problems with estimating model parameters that at present prevent his proposal from being useful in practice.

show abstract

Section: Statistical Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Mate Choice and Null Models

Kovaka¹

2020

Philos. of Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The Neutralist and Competitionist Research Programs use their starting points to investigate the relative significance of drift, dispersal, speciation, and interspecific competition with two reasoning strategies: Baseline Modeling and Adding Complexity. Baseline modeling is a strategy for apportioning the relative significance of a set processes to a pattern (Bausman 2018).…”

Section: Forth Having Accepted That the Tension Arises From The Relamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Aims and Structures of Ecological Research Programs

Bausman¹

2019

Philosophical Topics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Neutral Theory is controversial in ecology. Ecologists and philosophers have diagnosed the source of the controversy as: its false assumption that individuals in different species within the same trophic level are ecologically equivalent, its conflict with Competition Theory and the adaptation of species, its role as a null hypothesis, and as a Lakatosian research programme. In this paper, I show why we should instead understand the conflict at the level of research programs which involve more than theory. The Neutralist and Competitionist research programs borrow and construct theories, models, and experiments for various aims and given their home ecological systems. I present a holistic and pragmatic view of the controversy that foregrounds the interrelation between many kinds of practices and decisions in ecological research.

show abstract

“…Second, "null hypothesis" could mean null model as used by ecologists (Gotelli and Graves 1996). Null modeling tests a hypothesis that a set of processes is causally responsible for a set of patterns by comparing the data with a model which excludes those processes (Bausman 2018). If this is the case, then the reasoning strategy is still unjustified because in null modeling only the alternative model being tested by the null model is able to gain evidence.…”

Section: Other Potential Sources Of Justificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Baseline modeling measures the relative significance of various processes responsible for a token instance of a pattern by comparing the data with a model that includes only the baseline processes. Any deviations from the baseline expectation are taken to be caused by additional processes (Bausman 2018). If this is the case, however, proponents of the behavior-reading and neutrality hypotheses need to justify taking their processes as the baseline.…”

Section: Other Potential Sources Of Justificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not null enough: pseudo-null hypotheses in community ecology and comparative psychology

Bausman

Halina

2018

Biol Philos

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We evaluate a common reasoning strategy used in community ecology and comparative psychology for selecting between competing hypotheses. This strategy labels one hypothesis as a "null" on the grounds of its simplicity and epistemically privileges it as accepted until rejected. We argue that this strategy is unjustified. The asymmetrical treatment of statistical null hypotheses is justified through the experimental and mathematical contexts in which they are used, but these contexts are missing in the case of the "pseudo-null hypotheses" found in our case studies. Moreover, statistical nulls are often not epistemically privileged in practice over their alternatives because failing to reject the null is usually a negative result about the alternative, experimental hypothesis. Scientists should eschew the appeal to pseudo-nulls. It is a rhetorical strategy that glosses over a commitment to valuing simplicity over other epistemic virtues in the name of good scientific and statistical methodology.

show abstract

Modeling: Neutral, Null, and Baseline

Cited by 15 publications

References 29 publications

Mate Choice and Null Models

Mate Choice and Null Models

The Aims and Structures of Ecological Research Programs

Not null enough: pseudo-null hypotheses in community ecology and comparative psychology

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About