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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. (This isn't just some folk saying: it's a direct consequence of Bayes' theorem.) It's right to be more skep
by AgentME 5y ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. (This isn't just some folk saying: it's a direct consequence of Bayes' theorem.) It's right to be more skeptical of a study that finds a result that doesn't have any known mechanism, doesn't match up with the rest of what we know, and isn't reproducible.
- int_19h 5y agoIn this case, it was reproducible, though. And we'd have to reject many things in the history of physics if the criteria were "doesn't have any known mechanism"!
- coldtea 5y ago>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That's an a priori assumption though. Who arrived at the conclusion it was "extraordinary" and with what scientific methods? Not based on research, for one, because that's what we're evaluating here: research results positive to that claim. We could say: "We have a bias against it being true", but the "extraordinary claim" part is BS within the context of the scientific method. As for applying Bayes, the "prior" (in fields where it's not mathematically determined, like e.g. judging whether a coin is fair), is just another name for "at will bias".