Friday,
3 October 2003
The Tracking View of Scientific Evidence
Sherri Roush, Rice University
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Abstract:
I present a concept of evidence (confirmation) that contains some
old and some new ideas. Robert Nozick's tracking conception
of evidence is best understood, I argue, in terms of the likelihood
ratio P(e/h)/P(e/-h). A further condition is required if we want
evidence to give a good reason to believe a hypothesis, I argue,
and I make this the condition that P(e) be high, rather than that
P(h/e) be high. This is in contrast to the typical Bayesian recommendation
that the expectedness of the evidence be low.
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