I will present a theory of confirmation (support or corroboration) which can be considered both an extension of the work of Ian Hacking on support and of Karl Popper on corroboration. However, it will be clear that my theory is not a “mere conjunction of these two theories” (p. 202) but a formally simple and intuitive synthesis that explains their strengths and corrects their weaknesses.
Popper's explication of corroboration relies on the expression P(e,h) - P(e)2 normalized in different ways (p. 410). He goes on to state the following additional criteria for the corroboration of h by e: (a) we can only “rationally justify a preference for one theory out of a set of competing theories…. so far proposed” (p. 82); (b) e must be the result of a severe test (pp. 414, 418); (c) more-falsifiable hypotheses must be preferred (p. 41); (d) if h is a probabilistic hypothesis then e can only be a statistically interpreted finding, and thus e is often not allowed to be the total available evidence (p. 413).