Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The Bayesian Revolution



So we find that many phenomena in the cognitive sciences, plus the statistical methods used by scientists, plus the scientific method itself, are all turning out to be special cases of Bayes' Theorem. Hence the Bayesian revolution. LINK

This link is not an easy read but I think the topic is important for apologetics. From what I can gather, Bayesian reasoning assigns probability to evidence. The classic philosophy of science is that a theory is able to be disproved but not proved. Bayesian reasoning is different in that a probability is assigned to the evidence against a theory but also the evidence for a theory. This method of weighing evidence is being used in the cognitive sciences where evidence is very complicated. We need to understand how this works because this method of weighing evidence is bound to be used in regards to religious evidence. The real motive of why I’m posting this is that my sister told my parents that my blog was not as intellectually challenging as it was in the past. So this ones is for you Jeanne.

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