Abstract: Suppose you consider introducing new art programmes into your school and you want to predict what effects this would have on other learning outcomes. You might turn to the OECD's report Art for Art's Sake which reviews evidence that they take to tell you what 'we know about the impact that arts education could have on our children's academic achievement…'. There you are told we 'do not yet have definitive answers' because in particular: the strongest way to establish a causal connection is via experimental studies and we don't have many of those. The booklet does though review quite a lot of evidence from 'less rigorous' studies of the impact of arts education on various outcomes. For the impact studies we do have, Art for Art's Sake cites meta-analyses available and it provides its own narrative summaries. That's fine. But, I shall point out, for your prediction you will need lots more evidence – and evidence much different in kind – than impact studies. And the methods for amalgamating that evidence that the OECD booklet uses will not be of much help to you in predicting what will happen in your school. For that, I shall argue, you will be far better served by amalgamating evidence by what has been called 'building a case', as in detective fiction. And to do that most probably a lot of evidence that you will need is evidence you can't find reviewed in the OECD booklet.
Bio: Nancy Cartwright is Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Durham and at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She is past President of the Philosophy of Science Association and was President of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) in 2008. Her research interests include philosophy and history of science (especially physics and economics), causal inference and objectivity and evidence, especially on evidence-based policy. Her publications include How the Laws of Physics Lie (1983), Nature's Capacities and their Measurement (1989), Otto Neurath: Philosophy between Science and Politics [co-author] (1995), The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science (1999), and Hunting Causes and Using Them (2007). Nancy Cartwright is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.