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Robust Evidence and Secure Evidence Claims

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Kent W. Staley
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Abstract

Many philosophers have claimed that evidence for a theory is better when multiple independent tests yield the same result, i.e., when experimental results are robust. Little has been said about the grounds on which such a claim rests, however. The present essay presents an analysis of the evidential value of robustness that rests on the fallibility of assumptions about the reliability of testing procedures and a distinction between the strength of evidence and the security of an evidence claim. Robustness can enhance the security of an evidence claim either by providing what I call second-order evidence, or by providing back-up evidence for a hypothesis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 467 - 488
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Audiences to presentations at Saint Louis University, the Northwest Philosophy Conference, and the Twelfth International Congress of Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science have assisted the author in refining this analysis. I have had helpful discussions with George Terzis, James Marcum, Wayne Myrvold, and Bill Harper. Robert Hudson and an anonymous referee for another journal helped steer me toward an improved formulation, and two anonymous referees for this journal provided helpful commentary and suggestions.

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