CriticalThinkingAcademy

Table of Contents Evidential Naïveté Masquerading as Rigor Bastardizing Objectivity Confusing "An Explanation" with "Best Explanation" The Nature of Neutrality Its not quite Pseudo-Intellectualism Generalizing the Concept Applying this to Risk Assessment Final Thoughts References I was rewatching clone wars, specifically s5 ep19; the episode where Ahsoka is accused of bombing the Jedi temple. While watching this sequence, something really struck me. When it’s informed to the Jedi council that Ahsoka allegedly killed clones and is on the run, some jedi masters respond with “I can’t believe she has fallen so far?”. Grand admiral Tarkin responds by saying “it’s not our place to operate on beliefs, we deal in facts and evidence and the evidence points to Ahsoka”. I find this fascinating because it reminds me of Schums “Evidential Foundations of Probabilistic Reasoning”, and other scholars concerned with evidence...

This post considers a set of useful mental tools for evaluating reasons and evidence. We will begin with a Bayesian treatment of missing evidence. The central question is straightforward: if a thorough search fails to uncover evidence that we would expect to find if a claim were true, how should that absence affect our confidence in the claim? On this page Part I — Missing Evidence and Bayesian Reasoning Definitions A Preliminary Probability Point Implications of the Bayesian Result Critical Questions for Evaluating Evidence Part II — Limits, Counterexamples, and Explanatory Reasoning When Confirmation Can Mislead: Black Swans and the Turkey The Raven Paradox and Evidential Relevance Abduction and Alternative Explanations Evidence as Argument and as Story Evaluating Statistical and Research Evidence A Working Conception of Evidence Part III — Analyzing Arguments Step 1: Clarify and Define Terms Step 2: Formulate the Argument Step 3: Determine whether the conclusion follow...