Posted: Feb 01, 2012 9:35 pm
logical bob wrote:Sounds to me as if Carrier wants to have his cake and eat it. On the one hand he wants us to think that this is a valuable tool that will work better that the alternatives and on the other he wants to say that this is what we already do anyway. If criticism of your new tool is really criticism of all human reasoning then you haven't added anything new.
Part of his thesis is that all valid reasoning can be stated in Bayesian terms.
If that is correct, then it's true junking Bayes' Theorem is junking valid reasoning.
Carrier is suggesting making use of this powerful tool to help historians avoid the common mistakes scholars have noticed.
So what's 'new' is using a template of valid reasoning instead of the muddle in place now.