There is currently no viable alternative to the Bayesian analysis of scientific inference, yet the available versions of Bayesianism fail to do justice to several aspects of the testing and confirmation of scientific hypotheses. Bayes or Bust? provides the first balanced treatment of the complex set of issues involved in this nagging conundrum in the philosophy of science. Both Bayesians and anti-Bayesians will find a wealth of new insights on topics ranging from Bayes's original paper to contemporary formal learning theory. In a paper published posthumously in 1763, the Reverend Thomas Bayes made a seminal contribution to the understanding of "analogical or inductive reasoning." Building on his insights, modem Bayesians have developed an account of scientific inference that has attracted numerous champions as well as numerous detractors. Earman argues that Bayesianism provides the best hope for a comprehensive and unified account of scientific inference, yet the presently available versions of Bayesianisin fail to do justice to several aspects of the testing and confirming of scientific theories and hypotheses. By focusing on the need for a resolution to this impasse, Earman sharpens the issues on which a resolution turns. John Earman is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

Fans of Chris Ferrie's Rocket Science for Babies, Astrophysics for Babies, and 8 Little Planets will love this introduction to the basic principles of probability for babies and toddlers! Help your future genius become the smartest baby in the room! It only takes a small spark to ignite a child's mind. If you took a bite out of a cookie and that bite has no candy in it, what is the probability that bite came from a candy cookie or a cookie with no candy? You and baby will find out the probability and discover it through different types of distribution. Yet another Baby University board book full of simple explanations of complex ideas written by an expert for your future genius! If you're looking for baby math books, probability for kids, or more Baby University board books to surprise your little one, look no further! Bayesian Probability for Babies offers fun early learning for your little scientist!

Fun guide to learning Bayesian statistics and probability through unusual and illustrative examples. Probability and statistics are increasingly important in a huge range of professions. But many people use data in ways they don't even understand, meaning they aren't getting the most from it. Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way will change that. This book will give you a complete understanding of Bayesian statistics through simple explanations and un-boring examples. Find out the probability of UFOs landing in your garden, how likely Han Solo is to survive a flight through an asteroid shower, how to win an argument about conspiracy theories, and whether a burglary really was a burglary, to name a few examples. By using these off-the-beaten-track examples, the author actually makes learning statistics fun. And you'll learn real skills, like how to: - How to measure your own level of uncertainty in a conclusion or belief - Calculate Bayes theorem and understand what it's useful for - Find the posterior, likelihood, and prior to check the accuracy of your conclusions - Calculate distributions to see the range of your data - Compare hypotheses and draw reliable conclusions from them Next time you find yourself with a sheaf of survey results and no idea what to do with them, turn to Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way to get the most value from your data.

This influential book offers a probabilistic approach to scientific reasoning to resolve central issues in the philosophy of science.

Contrastivism can be applied to a variety of problems within philosophy, and as such, it can be coherently seen as a unified movement. This volume brings together state-of-the-art research on the contrastive treatment of philosophical concepts and questions, including knowledge, belief, free will, moral luck, Bayesian confirmation theory, causation, and explanation.

What is it to be scientific? Is there such a thing as scientific method? And if so, how might such methods be justified? Robert Nola and Howard Sankey seek to provide answers to these fundamental questions in their exploration of the major recent theories of scientific method. Although for many scientists their understanding of method is something they just pick up in the course of being trained, Nola and Sankey argue that it is possible to be explicit about what this tacit understanding of method is, rather than leave it as some unfathomable mystery. They robustly defend the idea that there is such a thing as scientific method and show how this might be legitimated. This book begins with the question of what methodology might mean and explores the notions of values, rules and principles, before investigating how methodologists have sought to show that our scientific methods are rational. Part 2 of this book sets out some principles of inductive method and examines its alternatives including abduction, IBE, and hypothetico-deductivism. Part 3 introduces probabilistic modes of reasoning, particularly Bayesianism in its various guises, and shows how it is able to give an account of many of the values and rules of method. Part 4 considers the ideas of philosophers who have proposed distinctive theories of method such as Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn and Feyerabend and Part 5 continues this theme by considering philosophers who have proposed naturalised theories of method such as Quine, Laudan and Rescher. This book offers readers a comprehensive introduction to the idea of scientific method and a wide-ranging discussion of how historians of science, philosophers of science and scientists have grappled with the question over the last fifty years.

These provocative essays by leading philosophers of science exemplify and illuminate the contemporary uncertainty and excitement in this changing field. The papers are rich in new perspectives, and their far-reaching criticisms challenge arguments long prevalent in classic philosophical problems of induction, empiricism, and realism. By turns empirical or analytic, historical or programmatic, confessional or argumentative, the authors' arguments both describe and demonstrate the fact that philosophy of science is in a ferment more intense than at any time since the heyday of logical positivism seventy years ago.

We are happy to present the first volume of the Handbook of Defeasible Reasoning and Uncertainty Management Systems. Uncertainty pervades the real world and must therefore be addressed by every system that attempts to represent reality. The representation of uncertainty is a ma jor concern of philosophers, logicians, artificial intelligence researchers and com puter sciencists, psychologists, statisticians, economists and engineers. The present Handbook volumes provide frontline coverage of this area. This Handbook was produced in the style of previous handbook series like the Handbook of Philosoph ical Logic, the Handbook of Logic in Computer Science, the Handbook of Logic in Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming, and can be seen as a companion to them in covering the wide applications of logic and reasoning. We hope it will answer the needs for adequate representations of uncertainty. This Handbook series grew out of the ESPRIT Basic Research Project DRUMS II, where the acronym is made out of the Handbook series title. This project was financially supported by the European Union and regroups 20 major European research teams working in the general domain of uncertainty. As a fringe benefit of the DRUMS project, the research community was able to create this Hand book series, relying on the DRUMS participants as the core of the authors for the Handbook together with external international experts.

This monograph offers a critique of arguments for the existence of a specifically Christian God advanced by prominent scholar William Lane Craig. The discussion incorporates philosophical, mathematical, scientific, historical, and sociological approaches. The author does not seek to criticize religion in general, or Christianity specifically. Rather, he examines the modern and relatively sophisticated evidential case for Christian theism. Scholars have been arguing for theism or naturalism for centuries, and there seems little to add to the discussion, especially from the theistic side. However, to assume that either theism or naturalism obtains is a false dichotomy. There are alternatives to both that merit consideration. Employing a probabilistic approach, the author advances this discussion. His work uniquely utilizes not only naturalistic hypotheses to argue against theism. It also presents supernaturalistic hypotheses. This leaves no question that theism is almost certainly false, even if some form of divine reality exists. This project seeks not to argue that Christianity or any other faith or religion is undesirable, but only to critically examine evidentialist claims posited by Christianity’s learned apologists. In fact, a major secondary aim is to consider alternative god-conceptions, such as polytheism and pantheism. This work aims to highlight that Christian theism is often granted special privileges by theistic philosophers of religion, which seems doubly inappropriate when certain alternative god-conceptions may even prove to be more plausible.

This volume is a contribution to the ongoing debate on the distinction between a ‘context of justification’ and a ‘context of discovery’. It is meant for researchers and advanced students in philosophy of science, and for natural and social scientists interested in foundational topics. Spanning a wide range of disciplines, it combines the viewpoint of philosophers and scientists and casts a new interdisciplinary perspective on the problem of observation and experimentation.