Deborah G. Mayo is an American
philosopher of science
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
and author. She is a professor emerita in the Department of Philosophy at
Virginia Tech
The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States ...
and holds a visiting appointment at the Center for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science of the
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...
.
Biography
Mayo graduated from
Clark University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1974. She received her PhD in philosophy from the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
in 1979, thesis title "Philosophy of Statistics".
Mayo was a professor of philosophy at Virginia Tech from 1979 to 2016. She taught undergraduate and graduate courses, including introductory and advanced logic (meta-theory of logic and modal logic), the
scientific method
The scientific method is an Empirical evidence, empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has been referred to while doing science since at least the 17th century. Historically, it was developed through the centuries from the ancient and ...
and
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...
.
She also held academic positions and taught classes in the Department of Economics at Virginia Tech, and the Center for the Study of Science and Society.
Her most recent research focuses on developing an account of experimental inference in science based upon statistical reasoning and the idea of learning from error.
Awards
In 1998, Mayo received the
Lakatos Award
The Lakatos Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, widely interpreted. The contribution must be in the form of a monograph, co-authored or single-authored, and published in English during the previou ...
for her book ''Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge.''
The prize is awarded every year to recently published English contributions on the philosophy of science which is considered an outstanding work in the field.
In 1997, Mayo received the Sturm Award for Excellence in Faculty Research, awarded by
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...
.
In July 2022, Mayo was inducted as a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.
Published books
*''Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management'', co-edited with R.D. Hollander, Oxford University Press, 1994
* '' Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge'', University of Chicago Press, 1996.
[ Hasok Chang, "Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge by Deborah Mayo (review)", ''The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science'', Vol. 48, No. 3 (Sep. 1997), pp. 455–459]
* ''Error and Inference: Recent Exchanges on Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science'', Cambridge University Press, 2010
* ''Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars'', Cambridge University Press, 2018
See also
*
List of female philosophers
*
List of women in statistics
References
External links
Deborah G. Mayo honored with emerita status
* ttp://www.phil.vt.edu/dmayo/personal_website/presentation.htm Presentation slides by Deborah G. Mayobr>London School of Economics: Deborah Mayo pageAppearance on ''The Filter Podcas''t
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayo, Deborah
21st-century American philosophers
20th-century American philosophers
American women philosophers
Living people
Virginia Tech faculty
Academics of the London School of Economics
Year of birth missing (living people)
American statisticians
American women statisticians
Lakatos Award winners