pragmatist comments on Conservation of Expected Evidence - Less Wrong

68 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 August 2007 03:55PM

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Comment author: Jiro 03 August 2014 02:56:57PM *  0 points [-]

For a true Bayesian, it is impossible to seek evidence that confirms a theory. There is no possible plan you can devise, no clever strategy, no cunning device, by which you can legitimately expect your confidence in a fixed proposition to be higher (on average) than before. You can only ever seek evidence to test a theory, not to confirm it.

Old post, but isn't evidence that disconfirms the theory X equal to confirming ~X? Is ~X ineligible to be considered a theory?

Comment author: pragmatist 03 August 2014 04:25:54PM 0 points [-]

Everything in that quote applies just as much to disconfirming a theory as it does to confirming a theory. Conservation of expected evidence means that you cannot legitimately expect your confidence in a theory to go down either.