Jacob Stegenga
Biographic Data
| ID | 1068902 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jacob Stegenga |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jacob |
| FAMILY NAME | Stegenga |
| SIGNATURE | STEGENGA J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7016-3708 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 105 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The New Chimera for Values in Science
Health, Disease, and the Medicalization of Low Sexual Desire: A Vignette-Based Experimental Study
Debates about the genuine disease status of controversial diseases rely on intuitions about a range of factors. Adopting tools from experimental philosophy, this paper explores some of the factors that influence judgments about whether low sexual desire should be considered a disease and whether it should be medically treated. Drawing in part on some assumptions underpinning a divide in the literature between viewing low sexual desire as a genuin…
Causal inference from clinical experience
How reliable are causal inferences in complex empirical scenarios? For example, a physician prescribes a drug to a patient, and then the patient undergoes various changes to their symptoms. They then increase their confidence that it is the drug that causes such changes. Are such inferences reliable guides to the causal relation in question, particularly when the physician can gain a large volume of such clinical experience by treating many patie…
Justifying Scientific Progress
I defend a novel account of scientific progress centered around justification. Science progresses, on this account, where there is a change in justification. I consider three options for explicating this notion of change-in-justification. This account of scientific progress dispels with a condition for scientific progress that requires accumulation of truth or truth-likeness, and it emphasizes the social nature of scientific justification
Fast Science
The Validity of the Argument from Inductive Risk
Joyce Havstad has argued in this journal that the argument from inductive risk is deductively valid and sound. As far as we know, this is the best reconstruction of the argument in the literature. Unfortunately, it suffers from a small flaw that renders the argument invalid. We identify this flaw, show that it is superficial, and show that a small amendment to the argument rescues the claim of its validity
Red herrings about relative measures: A response to Hoefer and Krauss
Evidence of effectiveness
Conventional Choices in Outcome Measures Influence Meta-Analytic Results
It is a plausible speculation that conventional choices in outcome measures might influence the results of meta-analyses. We test that speculation by simulating data from trials on antidepressants. We vary real drug effectiveness while modulating conventional values for outcome measures. We had previously shown that one conventional choice used in meta-analyses of antidepressants falls in a narrow range of values that maximize estimates of effect…
Sex Differences in Sexual Desire
The standard view about sex differences in sexual desire is that males are lusty and loose, while females are cool and coy. This is widely believed and is a core premise of some scientific programs like evolutionary psychology. But is it true? A mountain of evidence seems to support the standard view. Yet, this evidence is shot through with methodological and philosophical problems. Developments in the study of sexual desire suggest that some of …
Book Forum
Robustness and Independent Evidence
Robustness arguments hold that hypotheses are more likely to be true when they are confirmed by diverse kinds of evidence. Robustness arguments require the confirming evidence to be independent. We identify two kinds of independence appealed to in robustness arguments: ontic independence (OI)—when the multiple lines of evidence depend on different materials, assumptions, or theories—and probabilistic independence. Many assume that OI is sufficien…
Three Arguments for Absolute Outcome Measures
Data from medical research are typically summarized with various types of outcome measures. We present three arguments in favor of absolute over relative outcome measures. The first argument is from cognitive bias: relative measures promote the reference class fallacy and the overestimation of treatment effectiveness. The second argument is decision-theoretic: absolute measures are superior to relative measures for making a decision between inter…
Population Pluralism and Natural Selection
I defend a radical interpretation of biological populations—what I call population pluralism—which holds that there are many ways that a particular grouping of individuals can be related such that the grouping satisfies the conditions necessary for those individuals to evolve together. More constraining accounts of biological populations face empirical counter-examples and conceptual difficulties. One of the most intuitive and frequently employed…
Effectiveness of medical interventions
Measuring effectiveness
An impossibility theorem for amalgamating evidence
Is meta-analysis the platinum standard of evidence
Robustness, Discordance, and Relevance
Robustness is a common platitude: hypotheses are better supported with evidence generated by multiple techniques that rely on different background assumptions. Robustness has been put to numerous epistemic tasks, including the demarcation of artifacts from real entities, countering the “experimenter's regress,” and resolving evidential discordance. Despite the frequency of appeals to robustness, the notion itself has received scant critique. Argu…
Is meta-analysis the platinum standard of evidence
Robustness, Discordance, and Relevance
Robustness is a common platitude: hypotheses are better supported with evidence generated by multiple techniques that rely on different background assumptions. Robustness has been put to numerous epistemic tasks, including the demarcation of artifacts from real entities, countering the “experimenter's regress,” and resolving evidential discordance. Despite the frequency of appeals to robustness, the notion itself has received scant critique. Argu…
Measuring effectiveness
Robustness and Independent Evidence
Robustness arguments hold that hypotheses are more likely to be true when they are confirmed by diverse kinds of evidence. Robustness arguments require the confirming evidence to be independent. We identify two kinds of independence appealed to in robustness arguments: ontic independence (OI)—when the multiple lines of evidence depend on different materials, assumptions, or theories—and probabilistic independence. Many assume that OI is sufficien…
Population Pluralism and Natural Selection
I defend a radical interpretation of biological populations—what I call population pluralism—which holds that there are many ways that a particular grouping of individuals can be related such that the grouping satisfies the conditions necessary for those individuals to evolve together. More constraining accounts of biological populations face empirical counter-examples and conceptual difficulties. One of the most intuitive and frequently employed…
Three Arguments for Absolute Outcome Measures
Data from medical research are typically summarized with various types of outcome measures. We present three arguments in favor of absolute over relative outcome measures. The first argument is from cognitive bias: relative measures promote the reference class fallacy and the overestimation of treatment effectiveness. The second argument is decision-theoretic: absolute measures are superior to relative measures for making a decision between inter…
Effectiveness of medical interventions
An impossibility theorem for amalgamating evidence
Justifying Scientific Progress
I defend a novel account of scientific progress centered around justification. Science progresses, on this account, where there is a change in justification. I consider three options for explicating this notion of change-in-justification. This account of scientific progress dispels with a condition for scientific progress that requires accumulation of truth or truth-likeness, and it emphasizes the social nature of scientific justification
Evidence of effectiveness
Causal inference from clinical experience
How reliable are causal inferences in complex empirical scenarios? For example, a physician prescribes a drug to a patient, and then the patient undergoes various changes to their symptoms. They then increase their confidence that it is the drug that causes such changes. Are such inferences reliable guides to the causal relation in question, particularly when the physician can gain a large volume of such clinical experience by treating many patie…
Fast Science
Conventional Choices in Outcome Measures Influence Meta-Analytic Results
It is a plausible speculation that conventional choices in outcome measures might influence the results of meta-analyses. We test that speculation by simulating data from trials on antidepressants. We vary real drug effectiveness while modulating conventional values for outcome measures. We had previously shown that one conventional choice used in meta-analyses of antidepressants falls in a narrow range of values that maximize estimates of effect…
Sex Differences in Sexual Desire
The standard view about sex differences in sexual desire is that males are lusty and loose, while females are cool and coy. This is widely believed and is a core premise of some scientific programs like evolutionary psychology. But is it true? A mountain of evidence seems to support the standard view. Yet, this evidence is shot through with methodological and philosophical problems. Developments in the study of sexual desire suggest that some of …
Robustness, Discordance, and Relevance
Robustness is a common platitude: hypotheses are better supported with evidence generated by multiple techniques that rely on different background assumptions. Robustness has been put to numerous epistemic tasks, including the demarcation of artifacts from real entities, countering the “experimenter's regress,” and resolving evidential discordance. Despite the frequency of appeals to robustness, the notion itself has received scant critique. Argu…
Is meta-analysis the platinum standard of evidence
An impossibility theorem for amalgamating evidence
Effectiveness of medical interventions
Measuring effectiveness
Population Pluralism and Natural Selection
I defend a radical interpretation of biological populations—what I call population pluralism—which holds that there are many ways that a particular grouping of individuals can be related such that the grouping satisfies the conditions necessary for those individuals to evolve together. More constraining accounts of biological populations face empirical counter-examples and conceptual difficulties. One of the most intuitive and frequently employed…
Robustness and Independent Evidence
Robustness arguments hold that hypotheses are more likely to be true when they are confirmed by diverse kinds of evidence. Robustness arguments require the confirming evidence to be independent. We identify two kinds of independence appealed to in robustness arguments: ontic independence (OI)—when the multiple lines of evidence depend on different materials, assumptions, or theories—and probabilistic independence. Many assume that OI is sufficien…
Three Arguments for Absolute Outcome Measures
Data from medical research are typically summarized with various types of outcome measures. We present three arguments in favor of absolute over relative outcome measures. The first argument is from cognitive bias: relative measures promote the reference class fallacy and the overestimation of treatment effectiveness. The second argument is decision-theoretic: absolute measures are superior to relative measures for making a decision between inter…
Book Forum
Red herrings about relative measures: A response to Hoefer and Krauss
Evidence of effectiveness
Conventional Choices in Outcome Measures Influence Meta-Analytic Results
It is a plausible speculation that conventional choices in outcome measures might influence the results of meta-analyses. We test that speculation by simulating data from trials on antidepressants. We vary real drug effectiveness while modulating conventional values for outcome measures. We had previously shown that one conventional choice used in meta-analyses of antidepressants falls in a narrow range of values that maximize estimates of effect…
Sex Differences in Sexual Desire
The standard view about sex differences in sexual desire is that males are lusty and loose, while females are cool and coy. This is widely believed and is a core premise of some scientific programs like evolutionary psychology. But is it true? A mountain of evidence seems to support the standard view. Yet, this evidence is shot through with methodological and philosophical problems. Developments in the study of sexual desire suggest that some of …
The Validity of the Argument from Inductive Risk
Joyce Havstad has argued in this journal that the argument from inductive risk is deductively valid and sound. As far as we know, this is the best reconstruction of the argument in the literature. Unfortunately, it suffers from a small flaw that renders the argument invalid. We identify this flaw, show that it is superficial, and show that a small amendment to the argument rescues the claim of its validity
Justifying Scientific Progress
I defend a novel account of scientific progress centered around justification. Science progresses, on this account, where there is a change in justification. I consider three options for explicating this notion of change-in-justification. This account of scientific progress dispels with a condition for scientific progress that requires accumulation of truth or truth-likeness, and it emphasizes the social nature of scientific justification
Fast Science
Health, Disease, and the Medicalization of Low Sexual Desire: A Vignette-Based Experimental Study
Debates about the genuine disease status of controversial diseases rely on intuitions about a range of factors. Adopting tools from experimental philosophy, this paper explores some of the factors that influence judgments about whether low sexual desire should be considered a disease and whether it should be medically treated. Drawing in part on some assumptions underpinning a divide in the literature between viewing low sexual desire as a genuin…
Causal inference from clinical experience
How reliable are causal inferences in complex empirical scenarios? For example, a physician prescribes a drug to a patient, and then the patient undergoes various changes to their symptoms. They then increase their confidence that it is the drug that causes such changes. Are such inferences reliable guides to the causal relation in question, particularly when the physician can gain a large volume of such clinical experience by treating many patie…
The New Chimera for Values in Science
Epistemology (13 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Meta-analysis and systematic reviews (7 works) · Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life (6 works) · Mathematics (6 works) · Econometrics (5 works)