The paper discusses the (common, important, and yet neglected) situation of a (strong or full) conflict of evidence in scientific and everyday inference (which may lead to valuable new knowledge and even an unexpected scientific breakthrough). It analyses the structure and role of the background knowledge we are using and may have to change, and the many aspects of new information and its interpretation. A number of real life examples follows, which also bring up some more subtle points of inductive thinking.
Keywords. Background knowledge, new information, conflict of evidence, change of model/paradigm, common sense thinking, scientific breakthrough, philosophical foundations of inductive inference, real life examples.
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Authors addresses:
Seminar fuer Statistik
Leonhardstrasse 27
ETH-Zentrum, LEO D2
CH-8092 Zurich
Switzerland
E-mail addresses:
| Frank Hampel | hampel@stat.math.ethz.ch |