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Old 12-16-2005, 04:13 AM
chezlaw chezlaw is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: London, England
Posts: 58
Default Re: Evidence and all that

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I think meta-evidence is involved.

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That's actually a decent term for the principle underlying Occam's razor.

There's no direct evidence that any particular unfalsifiable theory is wrong. But there is some evidence that where two theories are equal in their explanatory power, the goofier one has a lesser chance of being correct than the simpler one. Not always, but more often than not.

This latter point is supported by observational experience. It is a sort of meta-evidence.

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As I pointed out before, this isn't true. there are no cases of examples where two theories don't produce different predictions about the world, yet one has been shown to be false.

or if it is true we realise its true for reasons other than evidence.

chez
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