Eric Holloway: How Dembski’s explanatory filter can help quash conspiracy theories

Eric Holloway says he found the explanatory filter quite helpful when investigating voter fraud claims in the recent US election:

The explanatory filter is a cornerstone of intelligent design theory. It allows for a better tradeoff between the types of errors than the extremes. The , like the skeptical position, emphasizes avoiding false positives. However, unlike the skeptical position, which takes the lazy solution of avoiding false positives by rejecting all positives, the explanatory filter accepts the possibility of true positives. It is a probabilistic method and cannot guarantee true positives, except perhaps in the limit. But it does allow us to quantify the probability of a true positive. In a scenario where there is an equal balance of true and false positives, it will allow through more true than false ones.

Eric Holloway, “How the explanatory filter can help quash conspiracy theories” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: The explanatory filter allows for a better tradeoff between the types of errors (False positives vs. false negatives) than alternative approaches do.

You may also wish to read: Is GMO detection an application of Dembski’s explanatory filter? If so, it would be an instance of the use of the filter in biology.

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