
Chapter 12
Future Research Topics
12.1 Introduction
Reid and Cox [203] discuss the importance of statistical theory, in particular, “the
foundations of statistical analysis, rather than the theoretical analysis of specific sta-
tistical methods.” Their essay makes a number of important points; we especially
support their claim that calibration, or validity (in our IM language), is essential.
However, it seems they dismiss the possibility that the inferential output can carry any
meaningful probabilistic interpretation and, since a general strategy for construct-
ing default priors remains elusive, they conclude that confidence-based methods are
the most ...