display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
22363 | You have only begun to do real science when you can express it in numbers [Kelvin] |
Full Idea: When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. | |
From: Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 4.1 | |
A reaction: [Popular Lectures 1 p.73] Clearly the writer is a physicist! Astronomers discover objects, geologists discover structures, biologists reveal mechanisms. |
2799 | Bayes' theorem explains why very surprising predictions have a higher value as evidence [Horwich] |
Full Idea: Bayesianism can explain the fact that in science surprising predictions have greater evidential value, as the equation produces a higher degree of confirmation. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Bayesianism [1992], p.42) |
2798 | Probability of H, given evidence E, is prob(H) x prob(E given H) / prob(E) [Horwich] |
Full Idea: Bayesianism says ideally rational people should have degrees of belief (not all-or-nothing beliefs), corresponding with probability theory. Probability of H, given evidence E, is prob(H) X prob(E given H) / prob(E). | |
From: Paul Horwich (Bayesianism [1992], p.41) |