English

Absolutely Zero Evidence

Other Statistics 2018-05-30 v1

Abstract

Statistical analysis is often used to evaluate the evidence for or against scientific hypotheses, and various statistics (e.g., p-values, likelihood ratios, Bayes factors) are interpreted as measures of evidence strength. Here I consider evidence measurement from the point of view of representational measurement theory, and argue that familiar evidence statistics do not conform to any legitimate measurement scale type. I then consider the notion of an absolute scale for evidence measurement, in a sense to be defined, focusing particularly on the notion of absolute 0 evidence, which turns out to be something other than what one might have expected.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1805.11516,
  title  = {Absolutely Zero Evidence},
  author = {Veronica J. Vieland},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.11516},
  year   = {2018}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T02:12:07.530Z