I’m looking for a study where someone has looked at accuracy on Raven’s matrices (or similar) items under extreme time pressure at the item level (not time pressure at the test level). I can’t find anything, but surely this study must exist?
Most importantly, I strongly disagree with Bill's apparent view that experimental work in philosophy should avoid testing competing theories and instead stick to "unproblematic common ground" with minimal "theoretical baggage". How could you make theoretical progress with such a view?
This wasn't a "curious methodological choice" which supported a non-ontic picture "only by accident". It was a deliberate attempt to empirically test a prediction made by non-ontic Zelcer-like accounts. I don't see where the "confounded results" or "muddled interpretations" are.
4. They didn’t, therefore participants couldn’t have only used ontic criteria when making their judgements.
3. If they had only used ontic criteria, the two purported explanations would have ended up with similar CJ parameters.
2. We asked mathematicians to make ontic explanations about two 'identical' proofs (same underlying argument, different presentation).
1. Some people (e.g., Mark Zelcer) believe that ontic explanations don’t exist in mathematics. If they're right, then when you ask mathematicians to make judgements about the ontic notion of explanation, they will actually make judgements about the epistemic notion.
I'm very puzzled by this criticism. The logic of this methodological choice was the following.
Bill goes on to suggest that "experimentalists ought to avoid designing studies around controversial ideology" and that they should stick to "unproblematic common ground".
In a section entitled "Experiment and Ideology", Bill suggests that our decision to prompt participants to think about explanation onticly (roughly, in a manner independent of how a reader might react to the purported explanation) was a "curious methodological choice" which "courted confusion".
Bill discusses a comparative judgement study that Pablo Mejía Ramos, @drtanyaevansnz.bsky.social, Colin Rittberg and I did a few years ago, concerning mathematicians' intuitions about mathematical explanations: doi.org/10.1007/s105...
Mathematicians’ Assessments of the Explanatory Value of Proofs - Global Philosophy
The literature on mathematical explanation contains numerous examples of explanatory, and not so explanatory proofs. In this paper we report results of an empirical study aimed at investigating mathem...
doi.org
Very niche thread, apologies!
I want to reply to a criticism made in this preprint by Bill D'Alessandro (who I think isn't on bluesky?). philpapers.org/archive/DALT...
I want to reply to a criticism made in this preprint by Bill D'Alessandro (who I think isn't on bluesky?). philpapers.org/archive/DALT...
philpapers.org
Attacked by the Charnwood Borough Council mace at today’s graduation ceremony.
Reposted by Matthew Inglis
Can your fear of maths shape your child's future?
New research from @lborouniversity.bsky.social & University of Bologna finds link b/ween parents’ maths anxiety & lower achievement in children.
Read Kinga & Carlo's @theconversation.com article on our blog today:
blog.lboro.ac.uk/cmc/2025/06/...
New research from @lborouniversity.bsky.social & University of Bologna finds link b/ween parents’ maths anxiety & lower achievement in children.
Read Kinga & Carlo's @theconversation.com article on our blog today:
blog.lboro.ac.uk/cmc/2025/06/...
Parents’ fear of maths linked to lower achievement in children – new research – Centre for Mathematical Cognition
tinyurl.com
This is a great summary of a very peculiar interaction. I wonder how Geraint Rees is coping with the new OfS duty that requires him and his UCL colleagues to “support constructive dialogue on contentious subjects”.
Reposted by Matthew Inglis, Linda J. Skitka, Mark Rubin , and 1 more Matthew Inglis, Linda J. Skitka, Mark Rubin, Sabina Leonelli
After two really enjoyable days at #Metascience2025, I wrote about how one 🌶️ moment encapsulated the controversy over metascience's issues 📑, inclusivity 🤗and future public value 🔮 #STS #AcademicSky
All feedback welcome on here, or by email 😀
warrenpearce.pika.page/posts/what-i...
All feedback welcome on here, or by email 😀
warrenpearce.pika.page/posts/what-i...
What *is* metascience? Issues, inclusion and future public value - Warren's blog: Publics, politics, science and technology
This week, the biennial Metascience Conference came to London’s “Knowledge Quarter” with around 800 participants from a wide range of roles, including researchers, librarians, research funders, publis...
warrenpearce.pika.page
Fully-funded PhD studentship to work on children’s financial literacy. Deadline end of June. https://ufncollaboratory.ac.uk/childrens-financial-literacy/
A really lovely article about the 2008 cup-winning squad. I particularly enjoyed the Hermann Hreidarsson bloodied-pigeon “That’s how we deal with things in Iceland” anecdote. www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/footba...
'I slept with the FA Cup': The magical inside story of Pompey's 2008 Wembley triumph
On the 17th anniversary of Pompey’s FA Cup win, three figures from behind the scenes tell the magical inside story
www.portsmouth.co.uk
I wrote a blogpost about how the REF may have influenced how British academics write papers.
Reposted by Matthew Inglis
New @lborodme.bsky.social blogpost today! @mjinglis.bsky.social reviews his work looking at the REF and its definition of research quality:
Has the research excellence framework changed how we write papers? The case of mathematics education.
Read below:
blog.lboro.ac.uk/cmc/2025/02/...
Has the research excellence framework changed how we write papers? The case of mathematics education.
Read below:
blog.lboro.ac.uk/cmc/2025/02/...
Has the Research Excellence Framework changed how we write papers? The case of mathematics education – Centre for Mathematical Cognition
blog.lboro.ac.uk
Evidence of @driro.bsky.social’s photography skills on show at Megan Foulkes’s PhD viva celebrations.
That’s more than Jimmy Dickinson.
Reposted by Matthew Inglis
Forgive the self-indulgence, but tonight marks my 1,000th #Pompey game for The News. It began at West Brom in February 2001 - and since then plenty of are-you-watching-the-same-game player ratings and match reports. My apologies. I might get the hang of it one day…
“Stewart Highmore Pearce (1818-1851) went to sea and married imprudently. He is probably the child whose head is painted out and replaced by a bible in the picture which used to hang in the front hall at West Stoke House.”
“George Pearce (b 1794) was a ship-broker at Lloyd’s. He was twice married. His second wife, Mrs Dipnall, squinted but was a good woman.”
“Little is known of Charles Woodman Eastwood (1829-1867) who went to Australia under a cloud, it is said. His daughter, Jeannie, returned to England and died here. Her circumstances are not known but she was something of a poor relation. She was also rather simple, sickly and godly.”
This Christmas I discovered my grandfather got interested in family history before he died. In amongst his folders of stuff there are some enjoyable one-paragraph biographies of distant relatives. Examples follow.
Could be. But the person who names the components needs a talking to.