File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1998/bhaskar.9809, message 38


Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 13:10:49 -0400
From: Louis Irwin <lirwin1-AT-ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: BHA: Regression paper 


Tony Lawson challenged Doug Porpora as follows:

>I wonder if you could clarify for me which of the 
>following positions, if either, you are defending:
>
>1) regression analysis does not require a closure for the "parameter 
>estimates", etc., to be meaningful/interpretable. 
>
>2) regression analysis only requires a closure within the sample 
>period or domain.
>
>If 1) I would be interested in how this conclusion is reached; if 
>2) I would be interested in wether you think this will get us far in 
>social world. 

1) seems to say that some systems in which regression analysis is valid are
open.  2) seems to say that all systems in which regression analysis is
valid are closed.  If that reading is correct, then 1) and 2) are
contradictory, so one has to be true and the other false.

2) smacks to me of weak actualism: the only laws we can discern are those 
that apply to closed systems, so I lean towards 1).  I guess the opposing 
view is that while laws apply to open as well as closed systems, regression 
analysis is only useful in closed systems (like controlled experiments) for
discerning laws.  I don't buy that, but I wonder what others think.

Louis Irwin



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