Cognitive Constructivism, Eigen–Solutions, and Sharp Statistical Hypotheses.pdf

FIS 2005, 1–23 FIS 2005 /fis2005/ Cognitive Constructivism, Eigen-Solutions, and Sharp Statistical Hypotheses Julio Michael Stern Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, University of S˜ao Paulo, Brazil. jstern@ime.usp.br Abstract: In this paper epistemological, ontological and sociological questions con- cerning the statistical significance of sharp hypotheses in scientific research are investi- gated within the framework provided by the Cognitive Constructivism and the FBST - Full Bayesian Significance Test. The constructivist framework is contrasted with Deci- sion Theory and Falsificationism, the traditional epistemological settings for orthodox Bayesian and frequentist statistics. Keywords: Autopoiesis, Cognitive constructivism, Epistemology, Ontology, Scientific hypotheses, Statistical significance tests, Social systems, Systems’ theory. c 2005 by MDPI (). Reproduction for noncommercial purposes permitted. FIS 2005 2 1 Introduction In this paper, a few epistemological, ontological and sociological questions concerning the statisti- cal significance of sharp hypotheses in the scientific context are investigated within the framework provided by Cognitive Constructivism, or the Constructivist Theory (ConsTh) as presented in Maturana and Varela (1980), Foerster (2003) and Luhmann (1989, 1990, 1995). Several conclu- sions of the study, however, remain valid, mutatis mutandis, within various other organizations and systems, see Bakken (2002), Christis (2001), Mingers (2000) and Rasch (1998). The author’s interest in this research topic emerged from his involvement in the