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Bayesianism and Diverse Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Andrew Wayne
Andrew Wayne*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Rochester
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Abstract

A common methodological adage holds that diverse evidence better confirms a hypothesis than does the same amount of similar evidence. Proponents of Bayesian approaches to scientific reasoning such as Horwich, Howson and Urbach, and Earman claim to offer both a precise rendering of this maxim in probabilistic terms and an explanation of why the maxim should be part of the methodological canon of good science. This paper contends that these claims are mistaken and that, at best, Bayesian accounts of diverse evidence are crucially incomplete. This failure should lend renewed force to a long-neglected global worry about Bayesian approaches.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 111 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1995

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Philip Kitcher, Paul Teller, Josh Jorgensen and an anonymous referee for incisive comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This work was supported by a Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA.

References

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