You previously asserted a counterfactual: "If statistics didn't work, casinos wouldn't work."
This is not the same claim as "a) casinos use statistics and b) casinos actually exist." If you want invalid post-hoc justifications of that nature, then here you go: profitable corporations use cost/benefit analysis to determine which projects to run, and they remain profitable.
But the fact of the matter is that you can't prove that statistics works. How would you do it? Compare a sample of casinos that use statistics to a sample who don't? Then run a statistical test to measure the difference, thereby engaging in circular reasoning?
Like it or not, this is a fundamental problem of epistemiology. Even if you want to compare two epistemiologies empirically, you still need to accept an underlying meta-epistemiology to have a method of comparison.
No, it's not. I'm quite happy to use a recursive definition for a truth value for statistics because it reduces to counting. I'll accept counting as an axiom.
Show me one casino that ignores statistics and remains profitable. Try setting one up yourself.
And, in fact, if you'd said that someone had run a CBA on CBAs, I'd have accepted that as your answer. You couldn't even do that though. You seem determined to turn it into a philosophy of science debate.
So, in short, you like CBAs and that's reason enough to insist on them for everything. No evidence required. And if someone asks for evidence, look to the sky and ask "what is truth?" I see.
And, in fact, if you'd said that someone had run a CBA on CBAs, I'd have accepted that as your answer.
I'm not "determined to turn it into a philosophy of science debate". It became one the moment you questioned computing (benefits - costs) and making decisions based on that.
And we will never come to agreement, given the fact that your meta-epistemiology accepts circular reasoning and mine doesn't. I'm sure if you can find someone else out there who has considered the issue and accepts circular reasoning, you can probably find some justification that you'll accept for CBAs, statistics, controlled experiments and all the rest of it. I suspect you'll have trouble finding this because your meta-epistemiology is rather unique, to say the least.
As for your hypothetical casino, I've never rejected statistics. It's circular reasoning (which you have repeatedly appealed to) that I reject. I don't actually have a meta-epistemiology at all, I simply accept the standard scientific epistemiology and move on with my life.
(Incidentally, if you accept subtraction in addition to counting, together with the idea that costs and benefits are commensurate, you've already justified cost/benefit analysis.)
Recursive definitions are hardly unique. If you have a problem with them, perhaps you don't understand them properly.
Your last statement is false. There doesn't seem much point in continuing this. You've already stated you have no evidence that CBAs work and that's clear enough.
This is not the same claim as "a) casinos use statistics and b) casinos actually exist." If you want invalid post-hoc justifications of that nature, then here you go: profitable corporations use cost/benefit analysis to determine which projects to run, and they remain profitable.
But the fact of the matter is that you can't prove that statistics works. How would you do it? Compare a sample of casinos that use statistics to a sample who don't? Then run a statistical test to measure the difference, thereby engaging in circular reasoning?
Like it or not, this is a fundamental problem of epistemiology. Even if you want to compare two epistemiologies empirically, you still need to accept an underlying meta-epistemiology to have a method of comparison.