 Confirmation: What's in the evidence?Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2016, vol. 65, issue C, 9-15 Abstract: The difference between accommodated evidence (i.e., when evidence is known first and then a hypothesis is proposed to explain and fit the observations) and predicted evidence (i.e., when evidence verifies the prediction of a hypothesis formulated before observing the evidence) is investigated in this article. According to the purely logical approach of Bayesian confirmation theory, accommodated and predicted evidence constitute equally strong confirmation. Using a survey experiment on a sample of students, however, it is shown that predicted evidence is perceived to constitute stronger confirmation than accommodated evidence. The results show that predictions work as a signal about the scientists’ (the proposer of the hypothesis) knowledge which in turn provides stronger confirmation. Keywords: Subjective beliefs; Evidence; Prediction; Postdiction; Retrodiction (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:65:y:2016:i:c:p:9-15 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2016.09.004 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier |
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