When it comes to evidence, I don’t believe Bayes’ theorem deals with the real-world problems that arise when considering a hypothesis. For example, it doesn’t deal with the “garbage in, garbage out” problem.
If you mean things like the base rate fallacy, then yes it does. If you mean that putting in random numbers for your priors doesn’t solve your problems, then there isn’t any method of considering evidence that fixes that in principle.
If you mean things like the base rate fallacy, then yes it does.
In the paragraph after the one you quoted, I gave an example of what I was discussing.
If you mean that putting in random numbers for your priors doesn’t solve your problems, then there isn’t any method of considering evidence that fixes that in principle.
You can check the source of the evidence and try to make sure that you’re not putting in random numbers but reliable data.
When considering hypotheses in the real world—like “Does God exist?” or “Is my wife cheating on me?”—Bayes’ theorem doesn’t encapsulate all the skills you need to arrive at a trustworthy answer. You must clearly understand what it is you’re trying to establish—Aquinas’s conception of God is very different from your average Christian’s. You must be willing to question beliefs that you are attached to or identify with—maybe your wife is sleeping with anything that moves, or maybe you’re a needlessly jealous, insecure husband. You must gather as much evidence as possible, including the evidence that you might initially deem to be irrelevant. You must be diligent, fastidious, and detached when performing the investigation—not hiding behind “Oh, my wife would never do that” or allowing your emotions to effect your judgment.
People will have done all the above and still arrived at erroneous conclusions. Such is the difficulty of testing a hypothesis.
If you mean things like the base rate fallacy, then yes it does. If you mean that putting in random numbers for your priors doesn’t solve your problems, then there isn’t any method of considering evidence that fixes that in principle.
In the paragraph after the one you quoted, I gave an example of what I was discussing.
You can check the source of the evidence and try to make sure that you’re not putting in random numbers but reliable data.
When considering hypotheses in the real world—like “Does God exist?” or “Is my wife cheating on me?”—Bayes’ theorem doesn’t encapsulate all the skills you need to arrive at a trustworthy answer. You must clearly understand what it is you’re trying to establish—Aquinas’s conception of God is very different from your average Christian’s. You must be willing to question beliefs that you are attached to or identify with—maybe your wife is sleeping with anything that moves, or maybe you’re a needlessly jealous, insecure husband. You must gather as much evidence as possible, including the evidence that you might initially deem to be irrelevant. You must be diligent, fastidious, and detached when performing the investigation—not hiding behind “Oh, my wife would never do that” or allowing your emotions to effect your judgment.
People will have done all the above and still arrived at erroneous conclusions. Such is the difficulty of testing a hypothesis.