Planning, criticism, and revision

Abstract

This paper presents a more complete theory of data analysis which allows for changes in the state of mind of the observer and also for approximations that limit planning costs. Discussion is included on the form that criticism should take, and the extent to which planned responses to the data can legitimately be revised after the data are reviewed. The proper role of diagnostics is discussed. Some diagnostic statistics are genuinely criticisms, but many are pre-test diagnostics that play a role in a complex multi-step method of estimation. A third category is elicitation diagnostics, which ask data-dependent questions about the prior distribution.