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Classically, risk is characterized by a point value probability indicating the likelihood of occurrence of an adverse effect. However, there are domains where the attainability of objective numerical risk characterizations is increasingly…
Scientific evaluation is a determinant of how scientists, institutions and funders behave, and as such is a key element in the making of science. In this article, we propose an alternative to the current norm of evaluating research with…
Academic research projects receive hundreds of billions of dollars of government investment each year. They complement business research projects by focusing on the generation of new foundational knowledge and addressing societal…
Statistics is sometimes described as the science of reasoning under uncertainty. Statistical models provide one view of this uncertainty, but what is frequently neglected is the 'invisible' portion of uncertainty: that assumed not to exist…
Experimental program review in our field may benefit from a more quantitative framework within which to quantitatively discuss the scientific merit of a proposed program of research, and to assess the scientific merit of a particular…
Many scientists have expressed concerns about potential catastrophic risks associated with new technologies. But expressing concern is one thing, identifying serious candidates another. Such risks are likely to be novel, rare, and difficult…
This special volume of Statistical Sciences presents some innovative, if not provocative, ideas in the area of reliability, or perhaps more appropriately named, integrated system assessment. In this age of exponential growth in science,…
Some risks have extremely high stakes. For example, a worldwide pandemic or asteroid impact could potentially kill more than a billion people. Comfortingly, scientific calculations often put very low probabilities on the occurrence of such…
Many see modern science as having serious defects, intellectual, social, moral. Few see this as having anything to do with the philosophy of science. I argue that many diverse ills of modern science are a consequence of the fact that the…
Scientific research requires taking risks, as the most cautious approaches are unlikely to lead to the most rapid progress. Yet much funded scientific research plays it safe and funding agencies bemoan the difficulty of attracting…
Scientific publishing is in a transition between the old paper-bound, static forms and the new electronic media with its interactive, dynamic possibilities. This takes place in the context of imploding library budgets and exploding magazine…
What factors affect a scientist's choice of research problem? Qualitative research in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science suggests that this choice is shaped by an "essential tension" between the professional demand for…
The selection process of proposals is a crucial component of scientific progress and innovations. Limited resources must be allocated in the most effective way to maximise advancements and the production of new knowledge, especially as it…
Some attack scientific rationality, others defend it, but both miss the point. What both parties take to be scientific rationality is actually a species of irrationality masquerading as scientific rationality. The current orthodox…
Scientific fact-checking aims to determine the veracity of scientific claims by retrieving and analysing evidence from research literature. The problem is inherently more complex than general fact-checking since it must accommodate the…
As AI systems appear to exhibit ever-increasing capability and generality, assessing their true potential and safety becomes paramount. This paper contends that the prevalent evaluation methods for these systems are fundamentally…
It is the role of the scientific community to provide for the knowledge of scientific facts and technical capabilities as a background for political decision-making. The reasons are given why governments are sometimes not ready to accept…
There is a curious absence of legal constraints on U.S. government agencies undertaking potentially risky scientific research. Some of these activities may present a risk of killing millions or even destroying the planet. Current law leaves…
Valid empirical studies build confidence in scientific findings. Fortunately, it is now common for software engineering researchers to consider threats to validity when designing their studies and to discuss them as part of their…
How does the extent to which a model is open or closed impact the scientific inferences that can be drawn from research that involves it? In this paper, we analyze how restrictions on information about model construction and deployment…