Likelihood and Consilience: On Forster's Counterexamples to the Likelihood 
Theory of Evidence

Zhang, Jiji; Zhang, Kun

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Likelihood and Consilience: On Forster's Counterexamples to the Likelihood Theory of Evidence

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Zhang, Kun
Dept. Empirical Inference, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Max Planck Society;

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Zhang, J., & Zhang, K. (2014). Likelihood and Consilience: On Forster's Counterexamples to the Likelihood Theory of Evidence. In Preprint volume for Philosophy of Science Association (PSA 2014), 24th Biennial Meeting (Version of 7 November 2014, pp. 976-990). Pittsburgh, PA, USA: PhilSci-Archive. Retrieved from http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11093.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0025-BD1F-1

Abstract

Forster presented some interesting examples having to do with distinguishing the direction of causal influence between two variables, which he argued are counterexamples to the likelihood theory of evidence (LTE). In this paper, we refute Forster's arguments by carefully examining one of the alleged counterexamples. We argue that the example is not convincing as it relies on dubious intuitions that likelihoodists have forcefully criticized. More importantly, we show that contrary to Forster's contention, the consilience-based methodology he favored is accountable within the framework of the LTE.