A substantial school in the philosophy of science identifies Bayesian inference with inductive inference and even rationality as such, and seems to be strengthened by the rise and practical success of Bayesian statistics. We argue that the most successful forms of Bayesian statistics do not actually support that particular philosophy but rather accord much better with sophisticated forms of hyp...

Argumentation schemes capture common, stereotypical patterns of reasoning which are nondeductive and nonmonotonic. As interest in understanding these schemes from a theoretical point of view grows, so too does an awareness within computational work that these schemes might yield powerful techniques in a range of domains. This paper aims to perform two functions. First, to briefly review the lit...

In 1875 the theoretical physicist James Clerk Maxwell published a paper in Nature entitled “On the Dynamical Evidence of the Molecular Constitution of Bodies.” In it he argues for the existence of molecules and for various claims of the molecular theory that he and others had been developing, including that molecules satisfy dynamical principles of classical physics. He does so without any expe...

A major problem that has been thought to stand in the way of an adequate account of hypothesis appraisal may be termed the alternative hypothesis objection: that whatever rule is specified for positively appraising H, there will always be rival hypotheses that satisfy the rule equally well. Evidence in accordance with hypothesis H cannot really count in favor of H, it is objected, if it counts ...

The problem of induction reminds us that science cannot wait for empirical hypotheses to be verified and Duhem's problem reminds us that we cannot expect full refutations either. We must settle for something less. The shape of this something less depends on which features of full verification and refutation we choose to emphasize. If we conceive of verification and refutation as arguments in wh...

We examine several formulations of the common practice of jumping to conclusions when actions demand decisions but solid knowledge fails. This practice permeates arti cial intelligence, where systems assume many conclusions automatically as defaults simply because the questions they decide are known to occur frequently, and where other assumptions are formulated and adopted only when ignorance ...

In this paper, I argue that the indispensability argument unifies all of Hilary Putnam’s diverse work in the philosophy of mathematics. I also argue that his version of the indispensability argument does not justify knowledge of mathematical objects. I first characterize indispensability arguments in the philosophy of mathematics, distilling them to four essential characteristics. I show that t...

a r t i c l e i n f o The presence and acceptance rates of hypotheses of papers in seven major soil journals were analyzed between 2001 and 2013. The aim of the study was to quantify the testing of hypotheses in soil science and investigate how it evolved over time. were published by the seven journals over that period. Of a sample of 620 papers, 74% tested one hypothesis, 20% tested two or mor...

BACKGROUND Since the term "evidence-based medicine" (EBM) first appeared in the scientific literature in 1991, the concept has had considerable influence in many parts of the world. Most professional societies, the public,and funding agencies have accepted EBM with remarkable enthusiasm. The concept of evidence-based practice is now applied in management, education, criminology, and social work...

Raymond Hubbard documents the statistical, social, and philosophical causes of the " reproducibility crisis " in Corrupt Research: The Case for Reconceptualizing Empirical Management and Social Science. Hubbard's diagnosis of the reproducibility crisis includes a detailed critique of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST), in particular testing nil null hypotheses (hypotheses of " no diffe...