"I don't know" means "I can't predict the outcome better than a dart throwing monkey". Doctors usually know more than that.
You seem to have a lot of black and white terms like "right hypothesis", "accepting explanations as truths" and "I don't know" in your thinking.
In the Bayesian perspective 0 and 1 aren't probabilities.
"I don't know" means "I can't predict the outcome better than a dart throwing monkey". Doctors usually know more than that.
The example I chose is a bit misleading. I am just using it to indicate the problem though. You are thinking of 'doctors' as the doctors in our culture but I was hypothesising a situation in which the field is much more primitive. It is interesting to me to see how rationality is applied to a field where data is unavailable, scarce or inconclusive.
...You seem to have a lot of black and white terms like "right
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.