Dorling 1982

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FURTHER ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BAYESIAN SOLUTION OF DUHEM'S PROBLEM

by Jon Dorling
Universiteit van Amsterdam

Table of Contents

Title and Abstract
The negligible effect of refutations in cases where most plausible rival theories are equally embarrassed by the observational result

Example: Laplace, Adams, and the secular acceleration of the moon.

(a) The quantitative precision of predictions and observations is irrelevant to the asymmetric effect of refutations on theory and auxiliary hypothesis
(b) The initial symmetry of the probabilities of T and H is not the origin of the main asymmetry effect, and in fact plays a rather minor role in it.
(c) Non-negligible effect of refutations in the social sciences

Examples: Freud, Marx.

Some examples of paradoxical confirmation by a `refuting' experiment

Examples: qualitative success with quantitative discrepancies; Einstein de Haas experiment.

Paradoxical disconfirmation by experimental results which are "too good to be true."

Examples: General Relativity, Brans-Dicke theory, and the advance of the perihelion of Mercury

Extra-Sensory Perception: evidence for cheating

Freud: the book Rebel Without a Cause,

Dirac and the hydrogen atom spectrum: saved by Pauli

Too successful model calculations in quantum field theory

The thirteenth decimal place of the Lamb shift

How to draw the right asymmetric conclusions from two crucial experiments with directly conflicting results

Examples: The 1919 solar eclipse test of General Relativity

The tests of the Bell-inequality: Holt's results versus Causer's results

Conclusions
Notes

References

Please write to bayesway@princeton.edu with any comments or suggestions.