On the symmetry of evidential support
Other Statistics
2026-04-01 v1
Abstract
For events and , we have whenever all four quantities are defined. In other words, is evidence for if and only if is evidence for . This note gives seven different proofs of this fact -- by cross-multiplication, covariance, coupling parameters, odds ratios, pointwise mutual information, combinatorial double counting, and mixed discrete derivatives -- and develops a surrounding web of interpretations. Once the marginals and are fixed, a table has only one degree of freedom, so every scalar notion of positive association must be governed by the same signed parameter.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.29786,
title = {On the symmetry of evidential support},
author = {Grant Molnar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.29786},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
20 pages