The doctor believed that the girl didn’t have any serious disease because most people who have headaches do not. How exactly is that not an appeal to majority?
If the doctor’s hypothesis anticipates that the girl is healthy in spite of having headaches, then the easiest way to falsify it is to ask what sign or symptom would indicate a life-threatening disease. Would you want your doctor to wait a week or so to test his hypothesis, if you had headaches that could be caused by a brain tumor?
But then again, they don’t teach falsification in med school.
iI would be an appeal to majority if and only if he was appealing to the fact that most people thought she didn’t have a serious disease. Instead, he was just appealing to base rates, which is totally reasonable.
The doctor believed that the girl didn’t have any serious disease because most people who have headaches do not. How exactly is that not an appeal to majority?
If the doctor’s hypothesis anticipates that the girl is healthy in spite of having headaches, then the easiest way to falsify it is to ask what sign or symptom would indicate a life-threatening disease. Would you want your doctor to wait a week or so to test his hypothesis, if you had headaches that could be caused by a brain tumor?
But then again, they don’t teach falsification in med school.
iI would be an appeal to majority if and only if he was appealing to the fact that most people thought she didn’t have a serious disease. Instead, he was just appealing to base rates, which is totally reasonable.