Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T20:15:02.194Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Piecewise versus Total Support: How to Deal with Background Information in Likelihood Arguments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Benjamin C. Jantzen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The use of the Law of Likelihood (LL) as a general tool for assessing rival hypotheses has been criticized for its ambiguous treatment of background information. The LL endorses radically different answers depending on what information is designated as background versus evidence. I argue that once one distinguishes between two questions about evidentiary support, the ambiguity vanishes. I demonstrate this resolution by applying it to a debate over the status of the ‘fine-tuning argument’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , July 2014 , pp. 313 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrow, John D., and Tipler, Frank J.. 1986. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bayarri, M. J., DeGroot, M. H., and Kadane, J. B.. 1988. “What Is the Likelihood Function?” In Statistical Decision Theory and Related Topics IV, ed. Gupta, Shanti S. and Berger, James O., 3–27. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, J. O., and Wolpert, R. L.. 1988. The Likelihood Principle: A Review, Generalizations, and Statistical Implications. 2nd ed. Hayward, CA: Institute of Mathematical Statistics.Google Scholar
Bj⊘rnstad, Jan F. 1996. “On the Generalization of the Likelihood Function and the Likelihood Principle.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 91 (434): 791–806.Google Scholar
Butler, R. W. 1988. “A Likely Answer to ‘What Is the Likelihood Function?’” In Statistical Decision Theory and Related Topics IV, ed. Gupta, Shanti S. and Berger, James O.. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolph. 1947. “On the Application of Inductive Logic.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 8 (1): 133–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eddington, A. 1947. The Philosophy of Physical Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, A. W. F. 1972. Likelihood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ghosh, M., Reid, N., and Fraser, D. A. S.. 2010. “Ancillary Statistics: A Review.” Statistica Sinica 20:1309–32.Google Scholar
Grossman, Jason. 2011. “The Likelihood Principle.” In Philosophy of Statistics, ed. Forster, Malcolm R. and Bandyopadhyay, Prasanta S.. Oxford: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1965. Logic of Statistical Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinkley, David V. 1980. “Likelihood.” Canadian Journal of Statistics 8 (2): 151–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kass, Robert E., and Raftery, Adrian E.. 1995. “Bayes Factors.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 90 (430): 773–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotzen, M. 2012. “Selection Biases in Likelihood Arguments.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63:825–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leslie, John. 1989. Universes. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Severini, Thomas A. 2000. Likelihood Methods in Statistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott. 2003. “The Design Argument.” In God and Design, ed. Manson, Neil, 27–54. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manson, Neil 2008. Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Manson, Neil 2009. “Absence of Evidence and Evidence of Absence: Evidential Transitivity in Connection with Fossils, Fishing, Fine-Tuning, and Firing Squads.” Philosophical Studies 143:63–90.Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard. 1990. “Arguments from the Fine-Tuning of the Universe.” In Physical Cosmology and Philosophy, ed. Leslie, J., 160–79. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Weisberg, Jonathan. 2005. “Firing Squads and Fine-Tuning: Sober on the Design Argument.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56:809–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar