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Data, Evidence, and Explanatory Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Pascal Ströing
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Abstract

Influential classical and recent approaches to explicate confirmation, explanation, or explanatory power define these relations or degrees between hypotheses and evidence. This holds for both deductive and Bayesian approaches. However, this neglects the role of data, which for many everyday and scientific examples cannot simply be classified as evidence. I present arguments to sharply distinguish data from evidence in Bayesian approaches. Taking into account this distinction, we can rewrite Schupbach and Sprenger’s measure of explanatory power and show the strengths of this adaptation by applying it to the example of the detection of gravitational waves in physics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 422 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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