How much evidence should one collect?
A number of philosophers of science and statisticians have attempted to justify conclusions drawn from a finite sequence of evidence by appealing to results about what happens if the length of that sequence tends to infinity. If their justifications are to be successful, they need to rely on the fin...
| Publicado en: | Philosophical Studies Vol. 172; no. 9; pp. 2299 - 2314 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Sep2015
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=108839883&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 108839883 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318116 4L8 jtl: Philosophical Studies issn: 00318116 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2015 vid: 172 iid: 9 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 108839883 10.1007/s11098-014-0411-z ppf: 2299 ppct: 15 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 435KB tig: atl: How much evidence should one collect? aug: au: Heesen, Remco affil: Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Baker Hall 161 Pittsburgh 15213-3890 USA su: Philosophers Statisticians Evidence Social epistemology Statistical decision making Justification (Ethics) sug: subj: Philosophers Statisticians Evidence Social epistemology Statistical decision making Justification (Ethics) keyword: Bayesian epistemology Formal epistemology Philosophy of science Rational choice Sequential decision problems ab: A number of philosophers of science and statisticians have attempted to justify conclusions drawn from a finite sequence of evidence by appealing to results about what happens if the length of that sequence tends to infinity. If their justifications are to be successful, they need to rely on the finite sequence being either indefinitely increasing or of a large size. These assumptions are often not met in practice. This paper analyzes a simple model of collecting evidence and finds that the practice of collecting only very small sets of evidence before taking a question to be settled is rationally justified. This shows that the appeal to long run results can be used neither to explain the success of actual scientific practice nor to give a rational reconstruction of that practice. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Philosophical Studies is a copyright of Springer, 2015. All Rights Reserved. item: Philosophical Studies holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2015 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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