Bayes and Bust: Simplicity as a Problem for a Probabilist's Approach to Confirmation

1 September 1995

journal article
Published by University of Chicago Press in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

Vol. 46 (3) , 399-424
https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/46.3.399

Abstract

The central problem with Bayesian philosophy of science is that it cannot take account of the relevance of simplicity and unification to confirmation, induction, and scientific inference. The standard Bayesian folklore about factoring simplicity into the priors, and convergence theorems as a way of grounding their objectivity are some of the myths that Earman's book does not address adequately.

Keywords

This publication has 13 references indexed in Scilit:

Non-bayesian foundations for statistical estimation, prediction, and the ravens example
Erkenntnis, 1994
How to Tell When Simpler, More Unified, or LessAd HocTheories will Provide More Accurate Predictions
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1994
MATHEMATICS AND INDISPENSABILITY + SCIENTIFIC REALISM AND EMPIRICAL EXPLANATION
The Philosophical Review, 1992
Unification, explanation, and the composition of causes in Newtonian mechanics
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1988
Representing and Intervening
Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1983
Explanatory Unification
Philosophy of Science, 1981
The accuracy of predictions
Synthese, 1975
ON POPPER'S DEFINITIONS OF VERISIMILITUDE¹
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1974
POPPER'S QUALITATIVE THEORY OF VERISIMILITUDE
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1974
THE PROPENSITY INTERPRETATION OF PROBABILITY
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1959