Timothy McGrew

Confirmation, heuristics, and explanatory reasoning

Recent work on inference to the best explanation has come to an impasse regarding the proper way to coordinate the theoretical virtues in explanatory inference with probabilistic confirmation theory, and in particular with aspects of Bayess Theorem. I argue that the theoretical virtues are best conceived heuristically and that such a conception gives us the resources to explicate the virtues in terms of ceteris paribus theorems. Contrary to some Bayesians, this is not equivalent to identifying the virtues with likelihoods or priors per se; the virtues may be more accessible epistemically than likelihoods or priors. I then prove a ceteris paribus theorem regarding theoretical consilience, use it to correct a recent application of Reichenbachs common cause principle, and apply it to a test case of scientific reasoning. 1. Explanation and confirmation2. The heuristic conception of theoretical virtues3. Abduction and the accessibility of explanatory power4. Evidential and theoretical consilience5. A test case: gravitational lensing6. Conclusion Explanation and confirmation The heuristic conception of theoretical virtues Abduction and the accessibility of explanatory power Evidential and theoretical consilience A test case: gravitational lensing Conclusion

The Two‐Envelope Paradox Resolved

In the standard version of the two-envelope paradox I am invited to play a game in which I may select one of two sealed envelopes. I am told (reliably) that both contain money, one twice as much as the other. After making my selection I am given the choice of swapping envelopes or sticking with my original pick. The paradox arises from the following reasoning, which gives the counterintuitive result that, whichever envelope I originally selected, it is in my interest to swap:

Collaborative intelligence. The Internet Chess Club on game 2 of Kasparov vs. Deep Blue

The Internet was an important witness to a change in human-computer relations this spring, when IBMs Deep Blue computer defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game chess match, 3.5 to 2.5. The author initiated an analysis by the Internet Chess Club that revealed a resource for Kasparov in the second game that could have prevented his defeat. The author dicusses the incident and the implications for collaboration on the Web.

Influence and provocation: Understanding relationships within a thematic research collection

In this poster, we present two interfaces for visualizing the relationships between ideas, issues and scholarship within a thematic research collection and discuss a graph-based data model for representing those ideas. These interfaces are intended to support collection understanding and exploration for non-specialist users within the context of a collection of 2000 historical documents spanning 300 years. The research question that drives the design of these tools is how to represent the deeply internalized conceptual framework acquired by a scholar over decades of study and communicate that information to non-specialists effectively.