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752Robust evidence and secure evidence claimsPhilosophy of Science 71 (4): 467-488. 2004.Many philosophers have claimed that evidence for a theory is better when multiple independent tests yield the same result, i.e., when experimental results are robust. Little has been said about the grounds on which such a claim rests, however. The present essay presents an analysis of the evidential value of robustness that rests on the fallibility of assumptions about the reliability of testing procedures and a distinction between the strength of evidence and the security of an evidence claim. …Read more
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18Kent Staley Reviewed work: Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics by Peter Galison (review)Philosophy of Science 67 (2): 339-341. 2000.
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80Evidence and Justification in Groups with Conflicting Background BeliefsEpisteme 7 (3): 232-247. 2010.Some prominent accounts of scientific evidence treat evidence as an unrelativized concept. But whether belief in a hypothesis is justified seems relative to the epistemic situation of the believer. The issue becomes yet more complicated in the context of group epistemic agents, for then one confronts the problem of relativizing to an epistemic situation that may include conflicting beliefs. As a step toward resolution of these difficulties, an ideal of justification is here proposed that incorpo…Read more
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154: Evidence claims depend on fallible assumptions. Three strategies for making true evidence claims in spite of this fallibility are strengthening the support for those assumptions, weakening conclusions, and using multiple independent tests to produce robust evidence. Reliability itself, understood in frequentist terms, does not explain the usefulness of all three strategies; robustness, in particular, sometimes functions in a way that is not well-characterized in terms of reliability. I argue t…Read more
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484Error-statistical elimination of alternative hypothesesSynthese 163 (3). 2008.I consider the error-statistical account as both a theory of evidence and as a theory of inference. I seek to show how inferences regarding the truth of hypotheses can be upheld by avoiding a certain kind of alternative hypothesis problem. In addition to the testing of assumptions behind the experimental model, I discuss the role of judgments of implausibility. A benefit of my analysis is that it reveals a continuity in the application of error-statistical assessment to low-level empirical hypot…Read more
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167I contrast two modes of error-elimination relevant to evaluating evidence in accounts that emphasize frequentist reliability. The contrast corresponds to that between the use of of a reliable inference procedure and the critical scrutiny of a procedure with regard to its reliability, in light of what is and is not known about the setting in which the procedure is used. I propose a notion of security as a category of evidential assessment for the latter. In statistical settings, robustness theory…Read more
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12Special Editor’s Introduction to Experimental and Theoretical KnowledgeModern Schoolman 87 (3-4): 185-189. 2010.
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19Lange, Marc. Natural Laws in Scientific Practice (review)Review of Metaphysics 56 (2): 435-436. 2002.
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1Evidence and JustificationIn Gregory J. Morgan (ed.), Philosophy of Science Matters: The Philosophy of Peter Achinstein, Oxford University Press. pp. 216. 2011.
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