Evidential Statistics in Model and Theory Development

Abstract

Read online

Evidential statistics is an important advance in model and theory testing, and scientific reasoning in general, combining and extending key insights from other philosophies of statistics. A key desiderata in evidential statistics is the rigorous and objective comparison of alternative models against data. Scientific theories help to define the range of models which are brought to bear in any such assessment, including both tried and trusted models and risky novel models; such theories emerge from a kind of evolutionary process of repeated model assessment, where model selection is akin to natural selection acting both on the standing crop of genetic variation, and on novel mutations. The careful use of evidential statistics could play an important and as yet to be fulfilled role in the future development of scientific theories. We illustrate these ideas using examples from ecology and evolutionary biology.

Keywords

• abduction
• deduction
• evidential statistics
• induction
• model
• theory