title: PolitiFact

text: Ostermeier observed that PolitiFact was not transparent about how the comments were selected for analysis and raised the possibility that the more negative evaluations of Republican comments might be the result of selection bias, concluding: "The question is not whether PolitiFact will ultimately convert skeptics on the right that they do not have ulterior motives in the selection of what statements are rated, but whether the organization can give a convincing argument that either a) Republicans in fact do lie much more than Democrats, or b) if they do not, that it is immaterial that PolitiFact covers political discourse with a frame that suggests this is the case." In response, PolitiFact editor Bill Adair stated in "MinnPost": "[...][W]e're accustomed to hearing strong reactions from people on both ends of the political spectrum. We are a news organization and we choose which facts to check based on news judgment. We check claims that we believe readers are curious about, claims that would prompt them to wonder, 'Is that true?'"


title: PolitiFact

text: An independent 2013 analysis from the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University showed results consistent with the findings of the aforementioned 2011 study, concluding that PolitiFact was three times as likely to rank statements from Republicans as “Pants on Fire,” and twice as likely to rank statements from Democrats as “Entirely True.” The disparity in these evaluations came despite roughly equally attention paid to statements made by representatives of the two parties: 50.4 percent for the GOP, versus 47.2 percent for the Democrats, with 2.4 percent attention paid to statements from independents.


title: Parotitis

text: Parotitis is an inflammation of one or both parotid glands, the major salivary glands located on either side of the face, in humans. The parotid gland is the salivary gland most commonly affected by inflammation.


title: Parotitis

text: From Greek παρωτῖτις (νόσος), parōtĩtis (nósos) : (disease of the) parotid gland < παρωτίς (stem παρωτιδ-) : (gland) behind the ear < παρά - pará : behind, and οὖς - ous (stem ὠτ-, ōt-) : ear.


title: Parotitis

text: is most often caused by a bacterial infection of Staphylococcus aureus but may be caused by any commensal bacteria. Parotitis presents as swelling at the angle of the jaw. Bacterial parotitis presents as a unilateral swelling, where the gland is swollen and tender and usually produces pus at the Stensen's duct. This pus is usually sampled and the bacteria within are identified. Common causative bacteria are Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes and E coli. It is associated with poor oral hygiene; oral infections and decreased saliva production. Symptoms include fever, dehydration, chills, fast heartbeat and breathing if the infection is causing sepsis. Medications such as antihistamines and diuretics can be predisposing factors. Treatment is usually antibiotics.


title: Parotitis

text: The mycobacterium that cause tuberculosis can also cause parotid infection. Parotid swelling can be an uncommon symptom of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (TB outside of the lungs). The usual symptoms are a cough, fever, weight loss, shortness of breath, chest pain, tiredness and chills. This is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. TB can also affect the heart, thyroid and adrenal glands but the main site of infection is the lungs. Risk factors are chronic alcohol consumption, diabetes, long term steroid use, HIV infection and kidney failure. Those infected tend to have enlarged, nontender, but moderately painful glands. The diagnosis is made by typical chest radiograph findings, cultures, or histologic diagnosis after the gland has been removed. When diagnosed and treated with antitubercular medications, the gland may return to normal in 1–3 months.


title: Parotitis

text: The most common viral cause of parotitis is mumps. Routine vaccinations have dropped the incidence of mumps to a very low level. Mumps resolves on its own in about ten days. A viral infection caused by Paramyxovirus, a single-stranded RNA virus. Common symptoms include fever, headache and bilateral or unilateral parotitis (swelling of the parotid gland on one or both sides of the face). The parotid gland is usually swollen and tender. Parotid swelling usually occurs 16–18 days after exposure to the virus. Treatment includes isolation and therefore prevention of spread of the disease and supportive measures such as hot or cold packs. Mumps usually resolves itself and can be prevented by vaccination.


title: Parotitis

text: "HIV parotitis:" Generalized lymphadenopathy has long been associated with HIV, but the localized enlargement of the parotid gland is less well known. HIV-associated salivary gland disease can involve many diseases but often presents as enlargement of the parotid gland and a dry mouth. Causes have not been specifically identified but the most likely are viral opportunists and autoimmune responses. Viruses linked to this can include; hepatitis C, cytomegalovirus, paramyxovirus, influenza A, and adenovirus. Treatment is anti-retroviral therapy.


title: Parotitis

text: "Disseminated histoplasmosis:" During a large urban disseminated histoplasmosis outbreak (est. 100,000 victims) in Indianapolis from 1978 to 1979, manifestations included parotitis.


title: Parotitis

text: Chronic inflammation of the salivary glands may also be an autoimmune disease known as Sjögren's syndrome. The disease most commonly appears in people aged 40–60 years, but it may affect small children. In Sjögren syndrome, the prevalence of parotitis in women versus men is approximately 9:1. The involved parotid gland is enlarged and tender at times. The cause is unknown. The syndrome is often characterized by excessive dryness in the eyes, mouth, nose, vagina, and skin.


title: Parotitis

text: Most frequently associated with a circumscribed tumor with the histologic features of Sjögren syndrome. This designation has also fallen out of favour.


title: Parotitis

text: Blockage of the main parotid duct, or one of its branches, is often a primary cause of acute parotitis, with further inflammation secondary to bacterial superinfection. The blockage may be from a salivary stone, a mucous plug, or, more rarely, by a tumor, usually benign. Salivary stones (also called sialolithiasis, or salivary duct calculus) are mainly made of calcium, but do not indicate any kind of calcium disorder. Other causes can be duct stricture (narrowing of the duct), infection or injury. Symptoms may include recurrent swelling, pain and aggravation during eating as this is when saliva production is stimulated. Ductal obstruction may cause less saliva flow, which can result in recurrent gland infections.


title: Parotitis

text: Stones may be diagnosed via X-ray (with a success rate of about 80%), a computed tomography (CT) scan or medical ultrasonography. Stones may be removed by manipulation in the doctor's office, or, in the worst cases, by surgery. Lithotripsy, also known as "shock wave" treatment, is best known for its use breaking up kidney stones. Lithotripsy can now be used on salivary stones as well. Ultrasound waves break up the stones, and the fragments flush out of the salivary duct.


title: Parotitis

text: This term is generally used for patients in whom no definite cause is found. Episodes may last for several days, paralleling the time course of a bacterial or viral illness. Others may experience episodes that last only a few hours from onset to resolution. Some episodes may last for several weeks. Quiescent periods between episodes last for hours, days, or even years.


title: Parotitis

text: The disease is also knows as juvenile recurrent parotitis (JRP). An uncommon syndrome in which recurring episodes clinically resembling mumps. Generally, episodes begin by age 5 years, and the frequency of the episodes generally ceases after the puberty. The duration of attacks averages 3–7 days but may last 2–3 weeks in some individuals. The spectrum varies from mild and infrequent attacks to episodes so frequent that they prevent regular school attendance.


title: Parotitis

text: Treatment of individual infections may prevent injury to the gland parenchyma. In the past, the disease was treated with aggressive surgical interventions such as Stensen’s duct ligation, superficial or total parotidectomy, and tympanic neurectomy. Nowadays, the disease is managed with sialendoscopic procedure. The sialendoscopy as a relatively safe and minimally invasive technique with a significant impact on the reduction of acute relapse episodes, has immense diagnostic and therapeutic potential in management of juvenile recurrent parotitis.


title: Parotitis

text: In this disorder, both parotid glands may be diffusely enlarged with only modest symptoms. Patients are aged 20–60 years at onset, and the sexes are equally involved. The glands are soft and non-tender. Approximately half of the patients have endocrine disorders such as diabetes, nutritional disorders such as pellagra or kwashiorkor, or have taken drugs such as guanethidine, thioridazine, or isoprenaline.


title: Parotitis

text: The lungs, skin, and lymph nodes are most often affected, but the salivary glands are involved in approximately 10% of cases. Bilateral firm, smooth, and non-tender parotid enlargement is classic. Xerostomia occasionally occurs. The Heerfordt-Waldenstrom syndrome consists of sarcoidosis with parotid enlargement, fever, anterior uveitis, and facial nerve palsy.


title: Parotitis

text: This term refers to IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD) involving any of the major salivary glands, i.e. parotid or submandibular glands. This is often symmetrical and is usually associated with manifestations of IgG4-RD elsewhere in the body. IgG4-related sialadenitis is particularly associated with involvement of one or both of the lacrimal glands (referred to as IgG4-related dacryo-sialadenitis). "Mikulicz's disease", now considered to be a subtype of IgG4-related disease, was a term used when (i) any two of the parotid, submandibular and lacrimal glands were persistently and symmetrically enlarged and (ii) other diseases that may mimic this presentation were excluded.


title: Parotitis

text: Air within the ducts of the parotid gland with or without inflammation. The duct orifice normally functions as a valve to prevent air from entering the gland from a pressurized oral cavity. Rarely, an incompetent valve allows insufflation of air into the duct system. Pneumoparotitis most commonly occurs in wind instrument players, glass blowers, and scuba divers.


title: Parotitis

text: Several lymph nodes reside within the parotid gland as a superficial and deep group of nodes. These nodes may be involved with any process that affects lymph nodes, including bacterial, fungal, viral, and neoplastic processes. Rarely, drugs such as iodides, phenylbutazone, thiouracil, isoproterenol, heavy metals, sulfisoxazole, and phenothiazines cause parotid swelling.


title: Parotitis

text: "Associated with Bulimia:" Parotid gland swelling is a common feature of self-induced vomiting. This swelling usually develops 3–4 days after the stopping of chronic excessive self-induced vomiting. The swelling is bilateral, with little tenderness. Causes are not well understood. Ideal treatment should be preventative and can involve medication that increases saliva production (sialagogues), anti-inflammatory medication and the application of hot packs. Occasionally pilocarpine can be used to help resolve the swelling.


title: Parotitis

text: Masseteric hypertrophy (enlargement of the masseter muscle's volume) can present as facial swelling in the parotid gland area and may be confused with 'true' parotid gland swelling. The specific cause of masseteric hypertrophy is still unclear, but it may be related to tooth grinding or malocclusion. Treatment options can include surgical removal of some of the muscle and botulinum toxin type A injections.


title: Nick Mullen

text: Nicholas James Mullen (born December 13, 1988) is an American stand-up comedian, podcaster, and comedy writer. Active since 2005, he is best known as the creator and co-host of the comedy podcast "Cum Town" and, in 2022, co-created its successor "The Adam Friedland Show". His comedy is ironic, observational and self-deprecating, and often focuses on internet culture.


title: Nick Mullen

text: Originally from Montgomery County, Maryland, he began performing in the Washington-Baltimore Metropolitan Area as a teenager, often at Wiseacres Comedy Club in Virginia. Many of his comedic anecdotes draw from a string of service industry jobs he held at this time. During his early twenties, he was based out of Austin, Texas, (and briefly Los Angeles).


title: Nick Mullen

text: A nationally touring stand-up, he was an opener for acts including Dana Gould, Jim Norton, Patrice O'Neal, and Hannibal Burress. In 2010, he was named "Best of Fest" at the Laugh Detroit festival. In 2012, he performed at SXSW as part of the "Made in Austin" and "Weekend Spotlight" comedy showcases. That same year, he was named one of the New Faces Unrepped by Montreal's "Just for Laughs" festival. Other festivals include the 2014 Bentzen Ball in Washington, D.C.


title: Nick Mullen

text: From 2013 to 2015, he wrote a popular ironic parody blog under the name Nicole Mullen on Thought Catalog. The blog featured satirical articles with titles like "Read This If Your Child Was Eaten By A Pelican", "Wape Jokes Awen’t Funny, And Neither Is My Speech Impediment", and "I'm Using Food Stamps To Pay For My Son's Sex Reassignment Surgery." He also had a prank call podcast called "Help Me, I'm Old".


title: Nick Mullen

text: In the mid-2010s, Mullen moved to New York City. Prior to "Cum Town", he had multiple TV and radio appearances. During the late 2010s, he was a recurring guest on the "Real Ass Podcast", "Race Wars" (hosted by Kurt Metzger and Sherrod Smalls), and "Legion of Skanks". His writing credits include "Comedy Knockout" on TruTV (premiered 2016), "Make Me Understand with Jim Norton" (2016 IFC television pilot), and 2017's "Problematic with Moshe Kasher" (Comedy Central). Additionally, he made appearances on "Red Eye (talk show)Red Eye w/ Tom Shillue" as a guest panelist.


title: Nick Mullen

text: From 2016 until its end in 2022, Mullen was a co-host of the popular comedy podcast "Cum Town". On June 29, 2022, Mullen and Adam Friedland released the first episode of "The Adam Friedland Show", a successor to "Cum Town", after co-host Stavros Halkias left the show. The show is hosted by Friedland and produced and co-hosted by Mullen.


title: Nick Mullen

text: Mullen lives in Brooklyn, New York. He previously lived in Manhattan's Chinatown; some of his comic anecdotes draw from his experience living there.


title: Deindustrialization

text: Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry.


title: Deindustrialization

text: There are different interpretations of what deindustrialization is. Many associate American deindustrialization with the mass closing of automaker plants in the now so-called "Rust Belt" between 1980 and 1990. The US Federal Reserve raised interest and exchange rates beginning in 1979, and continuing until 1984, which automatically caused import prices to fall. Japan was rapidly expanding productivity during this time, and this decimated the US machine tool sector. A second wave of deindustrialization occurred between 2001 and 2009, culminating in the automaker bailout of GM and Chrysler.


title: Deindustrialization

text: Research has pointed to investment in patents rather than in new capital equipment as a contributing factor. At a more fundamental level, Cairncross and Lever offer four possible definitions of deindustrialization:


title: Deindustrialization

text: Theories that predict or explain deindustrialization have a long intellectual lineage. Rowthorn argues that Marx's theory of declining (industrial) profit may be regarded as one of the earliest. This theory argues that technological innovation enables more efficient means of production, resulting in increased physical productivity, i.e., a greater output of use value per unit of capital invested. In parallel, however, technological innovations replace people with machinery, and the organic composition of capital increases. Assuming only labor can produce new additional value, this greater physical output embodies a smaller value and surplus value. The average rate of industrial profit therefore declines in the longer term.


title: Deindustrialization

text: Rowthorn and Wells distinguish between deindustrialization explanations that see it as a positive process of, for example, maturity of the economy, and those that associate deindustrialization with negative factors like bad economic performance. They suggest deindustrialization may be both an effect and a cause of poor economic performance.


title: Deindustrialization

text: Pitelis and Antonakis suggest that, to the extent that manufacturing is characterized by higher productivity, this leads, all other things being equal, to a reduction in relative cost of manufacturing products, thus a reduction in the relative share of manufacturing (provided manufacturing and services are characterized by relatively inelastic demand). Moreover, to the extent that manufacturing firms downsize through, e.g., outsourcing, contracting out, etc., this reduces manufacturing share without negatively influencing the economy. Indeed, it potentially has positive effects, provided such actions increase firm productivity and performance.


title: Deindustrialization

text: George Reisman identified inflation as a contributor to deindustrialization. In his analysis, the process of fiat money inflation distorts the economic calculations necessary to operate capital-intensive manufacturing enterprises, and makes the investments necessary for sustaining the operations of such enterprises unprofitable.


title: Deindustrialization

text: Institutional arrangements have also contributed to deindustrialization such as economic restructuring. With breakthroughs in transportation, communication and information technology, a globalized economy that encouraged foreign direct investment, capital mobility and labor migration, and new economic theory's emphasis on specialized factor endowments, manufacturing moved to lower-cost sites and in its place service sector and financial agglomerations concentrated in urban areas.


title: Deindustrialization

text: The term deindustrialization crisis has been used to describe the decline of labor-intensive industry in a number of countries and flight of jobs away from cities. One example is labor-intensive manufacturing. After free-trade agreements were instituted with less developed nations in the 1980s and 1990s, labor-intensive manufacturers relocated production facilities to third world countries with much lower wages and lower standards. In addition, technological inventions that required less manual labor, such as industrial robots, eliminated many manufacturing jobs.


title: Iron Patriot

text: The Iron Patriot is a patriotism-themed exoskeleton used by several fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.


title: Iron Patriot

text: The concept of the Iron Patriot, which is meant to evoke Iron Man and Captain America, first appeared in "Dark Avengers" #1 (March 2009) and was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato.


title: Iron Patriot

text: Norman Osborn donned the original Iron Patriot armor during the "Dark Reign" storyline to exert his authority as "commander" of H.A.M.M.E.R. and the Dark Avengers while using Oscorp's resources. However, the Iron Patriot's star-shaped Uni Beam projector had a less powerful output. Unsurprisingly, Osborn's activities as the Iron Patriot have been jeopardized by the original Avengers: Osborn gets tricked into attacking Tony Stark, and when the New Avengers led by Captain America used the Iron Patriot's tracking device on Luke Cage as a trick to destroy his own house. During Osborn's invasion of Asgard on the grounds of a national security threat, the Iron Patriot is disabled during Osborn's fight with Steve Rogers, revealing Osborn's Green Goblin-like face paint. When Rogers, Stark and Thor transfer him to the Raft penitentiary, Osborn blames his Goblin alter-ego for ruining his chance to protect America as the Iron Patriot.


title: Iron Patriot

text: Sarah Garza is an Inhuman who able to generate powerful explosions of energy with her Iron Patriot armor used as a regulator suit, and a rookie member to the Secret Avengers.


title: Iron Patriot

text: Dr. Toni Ho wore two versions of her own Iron Patriot armor as a member of the U.S. Avengers; a standard version, and a heavy combat variation.


title: Iron Patriot

text: The American Son is another patriotic-themed exoskeleton used by Harry Osborn during the "Dark Reign" storyline, and later by Gabriel Stacy.


title: Iron Patriot

text: One is seen during the "Fear Itself" storyline to assists the New Avengers, but the Iron Patriot is vaporized by the Red Skull's powers.


title: Iron Patriot

text: Another is seen during the "Marvel NOW!" event. At a weapons expo, the Iron Patriot now has a low-level A.I. and ends up stolen by A.I.M. for the Scientist Supreme's plans, but is almost interrupted by Nick Fury Jr. and Daisy Johnson. An Iron Patriot army of sentient drones controlled by Marvin Flumm were used to incriminate the United States in international attacks, such as a framed attack on Iran where the Hulk is sent in response. S.H.I.E.L.D. uses holographic communication to hack into the A.I.M. network so the Iron Patriot drones can understand these programmed actions are wrong.


title: Iron Patriot

text: The Iron Patriot drones are next seen during the "Inhumanity" storyline as the Secret Avengers' support. However, one is seen during the "Iron Patriot" series where it is utilized by Terrence Rhodes.


title: Iron Patriot

text: A variation of Steve Rogers utilized elements of Tony Stark's armor in order to control Hydra as the Hydra Supreme / Civil Warrior. The Hydra Supreme / Civil Warrior armor would later be utilized by Veronica Eden.


title: Iron Patriot

text: The Ultimate Marvel equivalent of the Iron Patriot appears due to Tony Stark / Iron Man inspired by Steve Rogers / Captain America for the Ultimates.


Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much is a 2017 American documentary film that profiles Ted Slauson, an elementary school mathematics teacher and super fan of "The Price Is Right". Interviews with Slauson reveal how he became fascinated with the show in the early 1970s, which drove him to memorize the prices of products, and his involvement with contestant Terry Kniess, who bid perfectly on a showcase in 2008 and gave no credit to Slauson for his assistance.


title: Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much

text: Ted Slauson spent his early life documenting and memorizing the prices of the prizes on "The Price Is Right". When he turned 18, Slauson started traveling to the show to become a contestant. Even when he was not picked from the audience to be a contestant, Slauson yelled out prices, which is allowed, helping contestants win cash and money on the show.


text: Over many years, Slauson called out prices to contestants, allowing them to submit the exact priceor "perfect bid"on various items, and helped a contestant make a "perfect bid" on the final showcase, helping them win both showcases (a feature of the game), totaling tens of thousands of dollars. Prior to that, he had helped two other contestants bid within a small margin of error on the final showcase, which also allowed them to win both showcases, per a feature of the game.


text: After helping a third contestant, Terry Kniess, with the "perfect bid" to win the double-showcase of prizes the show's producers finally started increasing and changing the diversity of items used on the show, including changing the options packages that impact the prices on automobiles, which are the highest priced single items available for the contestants to price. This makes it less likely that a contestant can remember the prices by simply watching the show over a long period.


text: Despite Terry maintaining that he had come up with the perfect bid on his own, Slauson reveals the truth behind the story that has been misrepresented for years. Ted Slauson is the most known contestant in the history of the show for such accuracy.


text: While Slauson, Barker and Dobkowitz were expressly interviewed for the film, there is also archive footage of Drew Carey discussing the incident with Kevin Pollak, from an episode of "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show".


text: "Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much" won best documentary at the Orlando Film Festival in 2017.


title: Aeolian mode

text: The Aeolian mode is a musical mode or, in modern usage, a diatonic scale also called the natural minor scale. On the white piano keys, it is the scale that starts with A. Its ascending interval form consists of a "key note, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step." That means that, in A aeolian (or A minor), you would play A, move up a whole step (two piano keys) to B, move up a half step (one piano key) to C, then up a whole step to D, a whole step to E, a half step to F, a whole step to G, and a final whole step to a high A.


title: Aeolian mode

text: The word "Aeolian", like the names for the other ancient Greek "tonoi" and "harmoniai", is an ethnic designation: in this case, for the inhabitants of Aeolis (Αἰολίς)—the Aeolian Islands and adjacent coastal district of Asia Minor. In the music theory of ancient Greece, it was an alternative name (used by some later writers, such as Cleonides) for what Aristoxenus called the Low Lydian "tonos" (in the sense of a particular overall pitching of the musical system—not a scale), nine semitones higher than the lowest "position of the voice", which was called Hypodorian. In the mid-16th century, this name was given by Heinrich Glarean to his newly defined ninth mode, with the diatonic octave species of the natural notes extending one octave from A to A—corresponding to the modern natural minor scale. Up until this time, chant theory recognized eight musical modes: the relative natural scales in D, E, F and G, each with their authentic and plagal counterparts, and with the option of B instead of B in several modes.


title: Aeolian mode

text: In 1547, Heinrich Petri published Heinrich Glarean's "Dodecachordon" in Basel. His premise had as its central idea the existence of twelve diatonic modes rather than eight, including a separate pair of modes each on the finals A and C. Finals on these notes, as well as on B, had been recognized in chant theory at least since Hucbald in the early tenth century, but they were regarded as merely transpositions from the regular finals a fifth lower. In the eleventh century, Guido d'Arezzo, in chapter 8 of his "Micrologus", designated these transposed finals A, B, and C as "affinals", and later still the term "confinal" was used in the same way. In 1525, Pietro Aaron was the first theorist to explain polyphonic modal usage in terms of the eightfold system, including these transpositions. As late as 1581, Illuminato Aiguino da Brescia published the most elaborate theory defending the eightfold system for polyphonic music against Glarean's innovations, in which he regarded the traditional plainchant modes 1 and 2 (Dorian and Hypodorian) at the affinal position (that is, with their finals on A instead of D) as a composite of species from two modes, which he described as "mixed modes". Glarean added "Aeolian" as the name of the "new" ninth mode: the relative natural mode in A with the perfect fifth as its dominant, reciting tone, reciting note, or "tenor". The tenth mode, the plagal version of the Aeolian mode, Glarean called "Hypoaeolian" ("under Aeolian"), based on the same relative scale, but with the minor third as its tenor, and having a melodic range from a perfect fourth below the tonic to a perfect fifth above it.


title: Aeolian mode

text: Scholars for the past three centuries have regarded the modes added by Glarean as the basis of the minor/major division of classical European music, as homophonic music replaced Renaissance polyphony. Howard S Powers considers this to be an oversimplification, since the key of A minor is as closely related to the old transposed modes 1 and 2 (Dorian and Hypodorian) with finals on A—as well as to mode 3 (Phrygian)—as it is to Glarean's Aeolian.


title: Aeolian mode

text: In modern usage, the Aeolian mode is the sixth mode of the major scale and has the following formula:


title: Aeolian mode

text: The Aeolian mode is the sixth mode of the major scale, that is, it is formed by starting on the sixth degree (submediant) of the major scale. For example, if the Aeolian mode is used in its all-white-note pitch based on A, this would be an A-minor triad, which would be the submediant in the relative major key of C major.


title: Aeolian mode

text: "Aeolian harmony" is harmony or chord progression created from chords of the Aeolian mode. Commonly known as the "natural minor" scale, it allows for the construction of the following triads (three note chords built from major or minor thirds), in popular music symbols: i, III, iv, v, VI, and VII. The scale also produces ii, which is avoided since it is diminished. The leading-tone and major V which contains it are also not used, as they are not part of the Aeolian mode (natural minor scale). However, Aeolian harmony may be used with mode mixture.


title: Aeolian mode

text: For example, VII is a major chord built on the seventh scale degree, indicated by capital Roman numerals for seven.


title: Aeolian mode

text: There are common subsets including i–VII–VI, i–iv–v and blues minor pentatonic derived chord sequences such as I–III–IV, I–IV, VII (The verse of "I'm Your Man"). All these lack perfect cadences (V–I), and may be thought of as derived from rewrite rules using recursive fourth structures (repeated progression by perfect fourth, see circle progression). Middleton suggests of modal and fourth-oriented structures that, rather than being, "distortions or surface transformations of Schenker's favoured V–I kernel, it is more likely that both are branches of a deeper principle, that of tonic/not-tonic differentiation."


title: Aeolian mode

text: The Aeolian mode is identical with the natural minor scale. Thus, it is ubiquitous in minor-key music. The following is a list of some examples that are distinguishable from ordinary minor tonality, which also uses the melodic minor scale and the harmonic minor scale as required.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut. In Vonnegut's work, Trout is a notably unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: "Trout" was inspired by the name of the author Theodore Sturgeon (Vonnegut's colleague in the genre of science fiction—Vonnegut was amused by the notion of a person with the name of a fish, Sturgeon, hence Trout), although Trout's consistent presence in Vonnegut's works has also led critics to view him as the author's own alter ego.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In a homage to Vonnegut, Kilgore Trout is also the titular author of the novel "Venus on the Half-Shell" (1975), written pseudonymously by Philip José Farmer.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In 1957, Theodore Sturgeon moved to Truro, Massachusetts, where he befriended Vonnegut, then working as a salesman in a Saab dealership. At the time, both were writing in the genre of science fiction; Vonnegut had already published "Player Piano", retitled "Utopia 14" in paperback, while Sturgeon's then more-successful career (mainly as a short story writer) stretched back to 1938. In fact, at the time of their initial meeting, Sturgeon was the most anthologized English-language science fiction author alive.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Sturgeon would continue writing, but his pace dipped noticeably after the end of the 1950s, and he published no original novels after 1961. By the time of Kilgore Trout's first appearance (in 1965's "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater"), both Vonnegut and Sturgeon had moved to different cities, and Vonnegut had begun to be perceived as a mainstream author.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: The "Kilgore Trout" name was a transparent reference to the older writer (substituting "Kilgore" for "Theodore" and "Trout" for "Sturgeon"), but since the characterization was less than flattering (both Sturgeon and Trout were financially unsuccessful and seemingly slipping into obscurity), Vonnegut did not publicly state the connection, nor did Sturgeon encourage the comparison. It was not until after Sturgeon's death in 1985 that Vonnegut explicitly acknowledged the matter, stating in a 1987 interview that "Yeah, it said so in his obituary in "The New York Times". I was delighted that it said in the middle of it that he was the inspiration for the Kurt Vonnegut character of Kilgore Trout."


title: Kilgore Trout

text: The impetus to create Kilgore Trout as a character, Vonnegut suggested in a 1979 NYPR interview, was the convenience it offered to turn science-fiction plots into humorous parables. "Kilgore Trout was more or less invented by a friend of mine, Knox Burger, who was my editor in the early days. He did not suggest that I do this, but he said, 'You know, the problem with science-fiction? It’s much more fun to hear someone tell the story of the book than to read the story itself.' And it’s true: If you paraphrase a science-fiction story, it comes out as a very elegant joke, and it’s over in a minute or so. It’s a tedious business to read all the surrounding material. So I started summarizing [them], and I suppose I’ve now summarized 50 novels I will never have to write, and spared people the reading of them."


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Trout appears in several of Vonnegut's books, but the character is deliberately inconsistent as Vonnegut habitually changes major details about his life and circumstances with each appearance. Trout is consistently presented as a prolific but unappreciated science-fiction writer; other details, including his general appearance, demeanor and his dates of birth and death, vary widely from novel to novel. (Perhaps the most extreme instance of this occurs in "Jailbird", wherein "Kilgore Trout" is merely a pseudonym of Dr. Robert Fender, a novelist and prison inmate.) Vonnegut makes no attempt to reconcile these sometimes extreme differences, and his novels do not form an internally consistent world.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Trout performs a variety of roles in Vonnegut's works: he acts as a catalyst for the main characters in "Breakfast of Champions", "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater", and "Slaughterhouse-Five", while in others, such as "Jailbird" and "Timequake", Trout is an active character who is vital to the story. Trout is also described differently in several books; in "Breakfast of Champions", he has, by the end, become something of a father figure, while in other novels, he seems to be something like Vonnegut in the early part of his career. In "Hocus Pocus", Trout is not mentioned by name, but the protagonist is deeply affected while reading a Trout-like science fiction story. In early novels, Kilgore Trout lives in Ilium, New York, a fictional town whose name is based on Troy, New York (Illium was the Roman name for ancient Troy and Vonnegut lived and worked in nearby Schenectady for some time). In later novels, Trout inhabits a basement apartment in Cohoes, an ailing mill community. While living in Cohoes, Trout works as an installer of "aluminum combination storm windows and screens." The ghost of Trout's son, Leon Trotsky Trout, is the narrator of the novel "Galápagos".


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Trout, who has supposedly written over 117 novels and over 2,000 short stories, is usually described as an unappreciated science fiction writer whose works are used only as filler material in pornographic magazines. However, he does have at least three fans: Eliot Rosewater and Billy Pilgrim—both Vonnegut characters—have a near-complete collection of Trout's work or have read most of his work; in "Galápagos", Leon Trotsky Trout goes on leave in Thailand and meets an unnamed Swedish doctor who is a fan of Kilgore Trout. This doctor helps Leon desert the US Marine Corps and defect to Sweden, where he receives political asylum as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Vonnegut revised Trout's biography on several occasions. In "Breakfast of Champions", he is born in 1907 and dies in 1981. In "Timequake", he lives from 1917 to 2001. Both death dates are set in the future as of the time the novels were written. More recently, in an article for "In These Times" Vonnegut "reports" that Kilgore Trout commits suicide by drinking Drāno. Trout "dies" at midnight on October 15, 2004, in Cohoes following his consultation with a psychic, who informs him that George W. Bush would once again win the U. S. Presidential election by a vote of 5-to-4 in the Supreme Court. The epitaph on his tombstone reads, "Life is no way to treat an animal."


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In "Breakfast of Champions", Kilgore Trout has part of his right ring finger bitten off by the book's other main character, Dwayne Hoover, when Kilgore attends an arts festival in the Midwest. Trout also has an encounter with his creator, Mr. Vonnegut, in the final chapter. Vonnegut tells him that he is setting him free, in much the same way that Leo Tolstoy freed his serfs, and that the rest of his life will be much happier: his work will be republished by reputable publishers, and his ideas will become very influential, leading to him winning the Nobel Prize for medicine. However, Vonnegut cannot grant Trout's request to "make me young."


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In "Jailbird" (1979), Kilgore Trout is revealed to be the only lifer in the Federal Minimum Security Adult Correctional Facility near Finletter Air Force Base, Georgia. "Jailbird", narrated by the fictional character Walter F. Starbuck, shows Kilgore Trout to be the only American convicted of treason during the Korean War. Kilgore Trout is the pseudonym of (the equally fictional) Dr. Robert Fender, whose doctorate is in veterinary science. While in prison, Fender also writes many science fiction novels under another pseudonym, Frank X. Barlow, and works as the chief clerk in the supply room of the prison.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: "Galápagos" is narrated by Leon Trotsky Trout (1946–1986), the son and only child of Kilgore Trout. Leon ran away at the age of 16, ashamed of his father, and never had any contact with him thereafter, until his death, when Kilgore appeared at the door of the "blue tunnel" that leads to the Afterlife. Kilgore appears at the door to the tunnel, urging his son to enter and proceed to the Afterlife. Three times Leon refuses, on the grounds that he wants to see more of human life in the hope of understanding it. During Kilgore's fourth appearance at the entrance to the blue tunnel, he threatens his son: if Leon doesn't leave the Earth immediately, the blue tunnel won't appear again for one million years. Since Kilgore has never lied to Leon, Leon knows this will come true. He is momentarily distracted by events on Earth, and the tunnel disappears. "Galápagos" contains several flashback scenes that explain the breakup between Kilgore and his wife. Leon states that he became a US Marine because his father was one. Trout's appearance in "Galápagos" is somewhat problematic for Vonnegut's continuity because the novel explicitly states that Kilgore dies before 1986, when the events of the novel take place. Yet "Timequake" finds him alive more than ten years later. In "Galápagos", Leon uses his omniscient status as a ghost to confirm that he never fathered a child, so that Kilgore never had any descendants.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In "Timequake" Kilgore's creed is "You were sick, but now you are well again. And there's work to be done." The novel also features Trout's last and presumably only poem:


title: Kilgore Trout

text: It is stated in "Timequake" that Trout's father killed his mother when Trout was 12. This influences Trout later in life, when he is shown to say the phrase "ting-a-ling" whenever greeted or asked any questions.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Trout accidentally becomes a great hero, rescuing many lives after the timequake, and finally receives a measure of acclaim: he spends his last days in a literary colony, honored for his heroism and some of his discarded works, which were preserved by a security guard.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In "A Man Without a Country", Vonnegut receives a brief phone call on January 20, 2004, from Kilgore Trout in which they discuss George W. Bush's State of the Union Address and the imminent death of the Earth due to human carelessness.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: At least one actual published work is attributed to Kilgore Trout: the novel "Venus on the Half-Shell", written by Philip José Farmer but published under the name "Kilgore Trout". For some time it was assumed that Vonnegut must have written it; when the truth of its authorship came out, Vonnegut was reported as being "not amused"; in an issue of the semi-pro zine "Science Fiction Review", published by Richard E. Geis, Geis claimed to have received an angry, obscenity-laden telephone call from Vonnegut about what Farmer had said about the book in Geis's zine.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Trout is referred to in Salman Rushdie's magical realism novel "The Ground Beneath Her Feet"—"Books by famous American writers... science fiction by Kilgore Trout..."


title: Kilgore Trout

text: Trout was portrayed by Albert Finney in the 1999 film version of "Breakfast of Champions", directed by Alan Rudolph.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In the novel "Fallen Angels" by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn, the folksinging fan Jenny Trout (a character based on real-life filksinger Leslie Fish) is said to be the daughter of Kilgore Trout.


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In "", Trout is referenced in passing as having written stories for a gentleman's magazine called "Stagman", an obvious reference to 1950s men's magazines such as "Stag", which existed a level beneath the relative acceptability of "Playboy".


title: Kilgore Trout

text: In the Capcom video game "Breath of Fire II" for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, two rival aristocrats are named Kilgore and Trout.


title: Raven paradox

text: The raven paradox, also known as Hempel's paradox, Hempel's ravens, or rarely the paradox of indoor ornithology, is a paradox arising from the question of what constitutes evidence for the truth of a statement. Observing objects that are neither black nor ravens may formally increase the likelihood that all ravens are black even though, intuitively, these observations are unrelated.


title: Raven paradox

text: This problem was proposed by the logician Carl Gustav Hempel in the 1940s to illustrate a contradiction between inductive logic and intuition.


title: Raven paradox

text: In all circumstances where (2) is true, (1) is also true—and likewise, in all circumstances where (2) is false (i.e., if a world is imagined in which something that was not black, yet was a raven, existed), (1) is also false.


title: Raven paradox

text: Given a general statement such as "all ravens are black", a form of the same statement that refers to a specific observable instance of the general class would typically be considered to constitute evidence for that general statement. For example,


title: Raven paradox

text: The paradox arises when this same process is applied to statement (2). On sighting a green apple, one can observe:


title: Raven paradox

text: By the same reasoning, this statement is evidence that (2) "if something is not black then it is not a raven." But since (as above) this statement is logically equivalent to (1) "all ravens are black", it follows that the sight of a green apple is evidence supporting the notion that all ravens are black. This conclusion seems paradoxical because it implies that information has been gained about ravens by looking at an apple.


title: Raven paradox

text: Nicod's criterion says that only observations of ravens should affect one's view as to whether all ravens are black. Observing more instances of black ravens should support the view, observing white or coloured ravens should contradict it, and observations of non-ravens should not have any influence.


title: Raven paradox

text: Hempel's equivalence condition states that when a proposition, X, provides evidence in favor of another proposition Y, then X also provides evidence in favor of any proposition that is logically equivalent to Y.


title: Raven paradox

text: Realistically, the set of ravens is finite. The set of non-black things is either infinite or beyond human enumeration. To confirm the statement 'All ravens are black', it would be necessary to observe all ravens. This is difficult but possible. To confirm the statement 'All non-black things are non-ravens', it would be necessary to examine all non-black things. This is not possible. Observing a black raven could be considered a finite amount of confirmatory evidence, but observing a non-black non-raven would be an infinitesimal amount of evidence.


title: Raven paradox

text: The paradox shows that Nicod's criterion and Hempel's equivalence condition are not mutually consistent. A resolution to the paradox must reject at least one out of:


title: Raven paradox

text: A satisfactory resolution should also explain "why" there naively appears to be a paradox. Solutions that accept the paradoxical conclusion can do this by presenting a proposition that we intuitively know to be false but that is easily confused with (PC), while solutions that reject (EC) or (NC) should present a proposition that we intuitively know to be true but that is easily confused with (EC) or (NC).


title: Raven paradox

text: Although this conclusion of the paradox seems counter-intuitive, some approaches accept that observations of (coloured) non-ravens can in fact constitute valid evidence in support for hypotheses about (the universal blackness of) ravens.


title: Raven paradox

text: Hempel himself accepted the paradoxical conclusion, arguing that the reason the result appears paradoxical is that we possess prior information without which the observation of a non-black non-raven would indeed provide evidence that all ravens are black.


title: Raven paradox

text: He illustrates this with the example of the generalization "All sodium salts burn yellow," and asks us to consider the observation that occurs when somebody holds a piece of pure ice in a colorless flame that does not turn yellow:


title: Raven paradox

text: One of the most popular proposed resolutions is to accept the conclusion that the observation of a green apple provides evidence that all ravens are black but to argue that the amount of confirmation provided is very small, due to the large discrepancy between the number of ravens and the number of non-black objects. According to this resolution, the conclusion appears paradoxical because we intuitively estimate the amount of evidence provided by the observation of a green apple to be zero, when it is in fact non-zero but extremely small.


title: Raven paradox

text: I. J. Good's presentation of this argument in 1960 is perhaps the best known, and variations of the argument have been popular ever since, although it had been presented in 1958 and early forms of the argument appeared as early as 1940.


title: Raven paradox

text: Good's argument involves calculating the weight of evidence provided by the observation of a black raven or a white shoe in favor of the hypothesis that all the ravens in a collection of objects are black. The weight of evidence is the logarithm of the Bayes factor, which in this case is simply the factor by which the odds of the hypothesis changes when the observation is made. The argument goes as follows:


title: Raven paradox

text: Many of the proponents of this resolution and variants of it have been advocates of Bayesian probability, and it is now commonly called the Bayesian Solution, although, as Chihara observes, "there is no such thing as "the" Bayesian solution. There are many different 'solutions' that Bayesians have put forward using Bayesian techniques." Noteworthy approaches using Bayesian techniques (some of which accept !PC and instead reject NC) include Earman, Eells, Gibson, Hosiasson-Lindenbaum, Howson and Urbach, Mackie, and Hintikka, who claims that his approach is "more Bayesian than the so-called 'Bayesian solution' of the same paradox". Bayesian approaches that make use of Carnap's theory of inductive inference include Humburg, Maher, and Fitelson & Hawthorne. Vranas introduced the term "Standard Bayesian Solution" to avoid confusion.


title: Raven paradox

text: To reach (ii), he appeals to Carnap's theory of inductive probability, which is (from the Bayesian point of view) a way of assigning prior probabilities that naturally implements induction. According to Carnap's theory, the posterior probability, formula_16, that an object, formula_17, will have a predicate, formula_18, after the evidence formula_19 has been observed, is:


title: Raven paradox

text: where formula_21 is the initial probability that formula_17 has the predicate formula_18; formula_24 is the number of objects that have been examined (according to the available evidence formula_19); formula_26 is the number of examined objects that turned out to have the predicate formula_18, and formula_28 is a constant that measures resistance to generalization.


title: Raven paradox

text: If formula_28 is close to zero, formula_16 will be very close to one after a single observation of an object that turned out to have the predicate formula_18, while if formula_28 is much larger than formula_24, formula_16 will be very close to formula_21 regardless of the fraction of observed objects that had the predicate formula_18.


title: Raven paradox

text: Using this Carnapian approach, Maher identifies a proposition we intuitively (and correctly) know is false, but easily confuse with the paradoxical conclusion. The proposition in question is that observing non-ravens tells us about the color of ravens. While this is intuitively false and is also false according to Carnap's theory of induction, observing non-ravens (according to that same theory) causes us to reduce our estimate of the total number of ravens, and thereby reduces the estimated number of possible counterexamples to the rule that all ravens are black.


title: Raven paradox

text: Hence, from the Bayesian-Carnapian point of view, the observation of a non-raven does not tell us anything about the color of ravens, but it tells us about the prevalence of ravens, and supports "All ravens are black" by reducing our estimate of the number of ravens that might not be black.


title: Raven paradox

text: Much of the discussion of the paradox in general and the Bayesian approach in particular has centred on the relevance of background knowledge. Surprisingly, Maher shows that, for a large class of possible configurations of background knowledge, the observation of a non-black non-raven provides "exactly the same" amount of confirmation as the observation of a black raven. The configurations of background knowledge that he considers are those that are provided by a "sample proposition", namely a proposition that is a conjunction of atomic propositions, each of which ascribes a single predicate to a single individual, with no two atomic propositions involving the same individual. Thus, a proposition of the form "A is a black raven and B is a white shoe" can be considered a sample proposition by taking "black raven" and "white shoe" to be predicates.


title: Raven paradox

text: Maher's proof appears to contradict the result of the Bayesian argument, which was that the observation of a non-black non-raven provides much less evidence than the observation of a black raven. The reason is that the background knowledge that Good and others use can not be expressed in the form of a sample proposition – in particular, variants of the standard Bayesian approach often suppose (as Good did in the argument quoted above) that the total numbers of ravens, non-black objects and/or the total number of objects, are known quantities. Maher comments that, "The reason we think there are more non-black things than ravens is because that has been true of the things we have observed to date. Evidence of this kind can be represented by a sample proposition. But ... given any sample proposition as background evidence, a non-black non-raven confirms A just as strongly as a black raven does ... Thus my analysis suggests that this response to the paradox [i.e. the Standard Bayesian one] cannot be correct."


title: Raven paradox

text: Fitelson & Hawthorne examined the conditions under which the observation of a non-black non-raven provides less evidence than the observation of a black raven. They show that, if formula_17 is an object selected at random, formula_38 is the proposition that the object is black, and formula_39 is the proposition that the object is a raven, then the condition:


title: Raven paradox

text: is sufficient for the observation of a non-black non-raven to provide less evidence than the observation of a black raven. Here, a line over a proposition indicates the logical negation of that proposition.


title: Raven paradox

text: This condition does not tell us "how large" the difference in the evidence provided is, but a later calculation in the same paper shows that the weight of evidence provided by a black raven exceeds that provided by a non-black non-raven by about formula_41. This is equal to the amount of additional information (in bits, if the base of the logarithm is 2) that is provided when a raven of unknown color is discovered to be black, given the hypothesis that not all ravens are black.


title: Raven paradox

text: The authors point out that their analysis is completely consistent with the supposition that a non-black non-raven provides an extremely small amount of evidence although they do not attempt to prove it; they merely calculate the difference between the amount of evidence that a black raven provides and the amount of evidence that a non-black non-raven provides.


title: Raven paradox

text: Some approaches for resolving the paradox focus on the inductive step. They dispute whether observation of a particular instance (such as one black raven) is the kind of evidence that necessarily "increases" confidence in the general hypothesis (such as that ravens are always black).


title: Raven paradox

text: Good gives an example of background knowledge with respect to which the observation of a black raven "decreases" the probability that all ravens are black:


title: Raven paradox

text: Good concludes that the white shoe is a "red herring": Sometimes even a black raven can constitute evidence "against" the hypothesis that all ravens are black, so the fact that the observation of a white shoe can support it is not surprising and not worth attention. Nicod's criterion is false, according to Good, and so the paradoxical conclusion does not follow.


title: Raven paradox

text: Hempel rejected this as a solution to the paradox, insisting that the proposition 'c is a raven and is black' must be considered "by itself and without reference to any other information", and pointing out that it "... was emphasized in section 5.2(b) of my article in "Mind" ... that the very appearance of paradoxicality in cases like that of the white shoe results in part from a failure to observe this maxim."


title: Raven paradox

text: The question that then arises is whether the paradox is to be understood in the context of absolutely no background information (as Hempel suggests), or in the context of the background information that we actually possess regarding ravens and black objects, or with regard to all possible configurations of background information.


title: Raven paradox

text: Good had shown that, for some configurations of background knowledge, Nicod's criterion is false (provided that we are willing to equate "inductively support" with "increase the probability of" – see below). The possibility remained that, with respect to our actual configuration of knowledge, which is very different from Good's example, Nicod's criterion might still be true and so we could still reach the paradoxical conclusion. Hempel, on the other hand, insists our background knowledge itself is the red herring, and that we should consider induction with respect to a condition of perfect ignorance.


title: Raven paradox

text: In his proposed resolution, Maher implicitly made use of the fact that the proposition "All ravens are black" is highly probable when it is highly probable that there are no ravens. Good had used this fact before to respond to Hempel's insistence that Nicod's criterion was to be understood to hold in the absence of background information:


title: Raven paradox

text: This, according to Good, is as close as one can reasonably expect to get to a condition of perfect ignorance, and it appears that Nicod's condition is still false. Maher made Good's argument more precise by using Carnap's theory of induction to formalize the notion that if there is one raven, then it is likely that there are many.


title: Raven paradox

text: Maher's argument considers a universe of exactly two objects, each of which is very unlikely to be a raven (a one in a thousand chance) and reasonably unlikely to be black (a one in ten chance). Using Carnap's formula for induction, he finds that the probability that all ravens are black decreases from 0.9985 to 0.8995 when it is discovered that one of the two objects is a black raven.


title: Raven paradox

text: Maher concludes that not only is the paradoxical conclusion true, but that Nicod's criterion is false in the absence of background knowledge (except for the knowledge that the number of objects in the universe is two and that ravens are less likely than black things).


title: Raven paradox

text: Quine argued that the solution to the paradox lies in the recognition that certain predicates, which he called natural kinds, have a distinguished status with respect to induction. This can be illustrated with Nelson Goodman's example of the predicate grue. An object is grue if it is blue before (say) and green afterwards. Clearly, we expect objects that were blue before to remain blue afterwards, but we do not expect the objects that were found to be grue before to be blue after , since after they would be green. Quine's explanation is that "blue" is a natural kind; a privileged predicate we can use for induction, while "grue" is not a natural kind and using induction with it leads to error.


title: Raven paradox

text: This suggests a resolution to the paradox – Nicod's criterion is true for natural kinds, such as "blue" and "black", but is false for artificially contrived predicates, such as "grue" or "non-raven". The paradox arises, according to this resolution, because we implicitly interpret Nicod's criterion as applying to all predicates when in fact it only applies to natural kinds.


title: Raven paradox

text: Another approach, which favours specific predicates over others, was taken by Hintikka. Hintikka was motivated to find a Bayesian approach to the paradox that did not make use of knowledge about the relative frequencies of ravens and black things. Arguments concerning relative frequencies, he contends, cannot always account for the perceived irrelevance of evidence consisting of observations of objects of type A for the purposes of learning about objects of type not-A.


title: Raven paradox

text: His argument can be illustrated by rephrasing the paradox using predicates other than "raven" and "black". For example, "All men


title: Raven paradox

text: are tall" is equivalent to "All short people are women", and so observing that a randomly selected person is a short woman should provide evidence that all men are tall. Despite the fact that we lack background knowledge to indicate that there are dramatically fewer men than short people, we still find ourselves inclined to reject the conclusion. Hintikka's example is: "... a generalization like 'no material bodies are infinitely divisible' seems to be completely unaffected by questions concerning immaterial entities, independently of what one thinks of the relative frequencies of material and immaterial entities in one's universe of discourse."


title: Raven paradox

text: His solution is to introduce an "order" into the set of predicates. When the logical system is equipped with this order, it is possible to restrict the "scope" of a generalization such as "All ravens are black" so that it applies to ravens only and not to non-black things, since the order privileges ravens over non-black things. As he puts it:


title: Raven paradox

text: Some approaches for the resolution of the paradox reject Hempel's equivalence condition. That is, they may not consider evidence supporting the statement "all non-black objects are non-ravens" to necessarily support logically-equivalent statements such as "all ravens are black".


title: Raven paradox

text: Scheffler and Goodman took an approach to the paradox that incorporates Karl Popper's view that scientific hypotheses are never really confirmed, only falsified.


title: Raven paradox

text: The approach begins by noting that the observation of a black raven does not prove that "All ravens are black" but it falsifies the contrary hypothesis, "No ravens are black". A non-black non-raven, on the other hand, is consistent with both "All ravens are black" and with "No ravens are black". As the authors put it:


title: Raven paradox

text: Selective confirmation violates the equivalence condition since a black raven selectively confirms "All ravens are black" but not "All non-black things are non-ravens".


title: Raven paradox

text: Scheffler and Goodman's concept of selective confirmation is an example of an interpretation of "provides evidence in favor of..." which does not coincide with "increase the probability of..." This must be a general feature of all resolutions that reject the equivalence condition, since logically equivalent propositions must always have the same probability.


title: Raven paradox

text: It is impossible for the observation of a black raven to increase the probability of the proposition "All ravens are black" without causing exactly the same change to the probability that "All non-black things are non-ravens". If an observation inductively supports the former but not the latter, then "inductively support" must refer to something other than changes in the probabilities of propositions. A possible loophole is to interpret "All" as "Nearly all" – "Nearly all ravens are black" is not equivalent to "Nearly all non-black things are non-ravens", and these propositions can have very different probabilities.


title: Raven paradox

text: This raises the broader question of the relation of probability theory to inductive reasoning. Karl Popper argued that probability theory alone cannot account for induction. His argument involves splitting a hypothesis, formula_47, into a part that is deductively entailed by the evidence, formula_19, and another part. This can be done in two ways.


title: Raven paradox

text: where formula_52, formula_53 and formula_54 are probabilistically independent: formula_55 and so on. The condition that is necessary for such a splitting of H and E to be possible is formula_56, that is, that formula_47 is probabilistically supported by formula_19.


title: Raven paradox

text: Popper's observation is that the part, formula_53, of formula_47 that receives support from formula_19 actually follows deductively from formula_19, while the part of formula_47 that does not follow deductively from formula_19 receives no support at all from formula_19 – that is, formula_66.


title: Raven paradox

text: separates formula_47 into formula_69, which as Popper says, "is the logically strongest part of formula_47 (or of the content of formula_47) that follows [deductively] from formula_19", and formula_73, which, he says, "contains all of formula_47 that goes beyond formula_19". He continues:


title: Raven paradox

text: The orthodox Neyman–Pearson theory of hypothesis testing considers how to decide whether to "accept" or "reject" a hypothesis, rather than what probability to assign to the hypothesis. From this point of view, the hypothesis that "All ravens are black" is not accepted "gradually", as its probability increases towards one when more and more observations are made, but is accepted in a single action as the result of evaluating the data that has already been collected. As Neyman and Pearson put it:


title: Raven paradox

text: According to this approach, it is not necessary to assign any value to the probability of a "hypothesis", although one must certainly take into account the probability of the "data" given the hypothesis, or given a competing hypothesis, when deciding whether to accept or to reject. The acceptance or rejection of a hypothesis carries with it the risk of error.


title: Raven paradox

text: This contrasts with the Bayesian approach, which requires that the hypothesis be assigned a prior probability, which is revised in the light of the observed data to obtain the final probability of the hypothesis. Within the Bayesian framework there is no risk of error since hypotheses are not accepted or rejected; instead they are assigned probabilities.


title: Raven paradox

text: An analysis of the paradox from the orthodox point of view has been performed, and leads to, among other insights, a rejection of the equivalence condition:


title: Raven paradox

text: The following propositions all imply one another: "Every object is either black or not a raven", "Every raven is black", and "Every non-black object is a non-raven." They are therefore, by definition, logically equivalent. However, the three propositions have different domains: the first proposition says something about "every object", while the second says something about "every raven".


title: Raven paradox

text: The first proposition is the only one whose domain of quantification is unrestricted ("all objects"), so this is the only one that can be expressed in first-order logic. It is logically equivalent to:


title: Raven paradox

text: where formula_91 indicates the material conditional, according to which "If formula_52 then can be understood to mean


title: Raven paradox

text: It has been argued by several authors that material implication does not fully capture the meaning of "If formula_52 then (see the paradoxes of material implication). "For every object, formula_94 is either black or not a raven" is "true" when there are no ravens. It is because of this that "All ravens are black" is regarded as true when there are no ravens. Furthermore, the arguments that Good and Maher used to criticize Nicod's criterion (see , above) relied on this fact – that "All ravens are black" is highly probable when it is highly probable that there are no ravens.


title: Raven paradox

text: To say that all ravens are black in the absence of any ravens is an empty statement. It refers to nothing. "All ravens are white" is equally relevant and true, if this statement is considered to have any truth or relevance.


title: Raven paradox

text: Some approaches to the paradox have sought to find other ways of interpreting "If formula_52 then and "All formula_52 are which would eliminate the perceived equivalence between "All ravens are black" and "All non-black things are non-ravens."


title: Raven paradox

text: One such approach involves introducing a many-valued logic according to which "If formula_52 then has the truth value meaning "Indeterminate" or "Inappropriate" when formula_52 is false. In such a system, contraposition is not automatically allowed: "If formula_52 then is not equivalent to "If formula_100 then Consequently, "All ravens are black" is not equivalent to "All non-black things are non-ravens".


title: Raven paradox

text: In this system, when contraposition occurs, the modality of the conditional involved changes from the indicative ("If that piece of butter "has been" heated to 32 °C then it "has" melted") to the counterfactual ("If that piece of butter "had been" heated to 32 °C then it "would have" melted"). According to this argument, this removes the alleged equivalence that is necessary to conclude that yellow cows can inform us about ravens:


title: Raven paradox

text: Several commentators have observed that the propositions "All ravens are black" and "All non-black things are non-ravens" suggest different procedures for testing the hypotheses. E.g. Good writes:


title: Raven paradox

text: More recently, it has been suggested that "All ravens are black" and "All non-black things are non-ravens" can have different effects when "accepted". The argument considers situations in which the total numbers or prevalences of ravens and black objects are unknown, but estimated. When the hypothesis "All ravens are black" is accepted, according to the argument, the estimated number of black objects increases, while the estimated number of ravens does not change.


title: Raven paradox

text: It can be illustrated by considering the situation of two people who have identical information regarding ravens and black objects, and who have identical estimates of the numbers of ravens and black objects. For concreteness, suppose that there are 100 objects overall, and, according to the information available to the people involved, each object is just as likely to be a non-raven as it is to be a raven, and just as likely to be black as it is to be non-black:


title: Raven paradox

text: and the propositions formula_106 are independent for different objects formula_17, formula_3 and so on. Then the estimated number of ravens is 50; the estimated number of black things is 50; the estimated number of black ravens is 25, and the estimated number of non-black ravens (counterexamples to the hypotheses) is 25.


title: Raven paradox

text: One of the people performs a statistical test (e.g. a Neyman-Pearson test or the comparison of the accumulated weight of evidence to a threshold) of the hypothesis that "All ravens are black", while the other tests the hypothesis that "All non-black objects


title: Raven paradox

text: are non-ravens". For simplicity, suppose that the evidence used for the test has nothing to do with the collection of 100 objects dealt with here. If the first person accepts the hypothesis that "All ravens are black" then, according to the argument, about 50 objects whose colors were previously in doubt (the ravens) are now thought to be black, while nothing different is thought about the remaining objects (the non-ravens). Consequently, he should estimate the number of black ravens at 50, the number of black non-ravens at 25 and the number of non-black non-ravens at 25. By specifying these changes, this argument "explicitly" restricts the domain of "All ravens are black" to ravens.


title: Raven paradox

text: On the other hand, if the second person accepts the hypothesis that "All non-black objects are non-ravens", then the approximately 50 non-black objects about which it was uncertain whether each was a raven, will be thought to be non-ravens. At the same time, nothing different will be thought about the approximately 50 remaining objects (the black objects). Consequently, he should estimate the number of black ravens at 25, the number of black non-ravens at 25 and the number of non-black non-ravens at 50. According to this argument, since the two people disagree about their estimates after they have accepted the different hypotheses, accepting "All ravens are black" is not equivalent to accepting "All non-black things are non-ravens"; accepting the former means estimating more things to be black, while accepting the latter involves estimating more things to be non-ravens. Correspondingly, the argument goes, the former requires as evidence ravens that turn out to be black and the latter requires non-black things that turn out to be non-ravens.


title: Raven paradox

text: A number of authors have argued that propositions of the form "All formula_52 are formula_53" presuppose that there are objects that are formula_52. This analysis has been applied to the raven paradox:


title: Raven paradox

text: A modified logic can take account of existential presuppositions using the presuppositional operator, '*'. For example,


title: Raven paradox

text: can denote "All ravens are black" while indicating that it is ravens and not non-black objects which are presupposed to exist in this example.


title: Huel

text: Huel, manufactured by Huel Ltd., is a meal replacement available in powder, liquid, bar, or grain forms. Huel's first product is made from oats, rice protein, pea protein, sunflower, flaxseed, coconut oil MCTs, and several dietary supplements (vitamins and minerals). Most of their products are sweetened with sucralose or stevia.


title: Huel

text: In 2014, Huel was founded by Julian Hearn in Aylesbury, England. The original recipe was formulated by registered nutritionist James Collier, founder and former owner of MuscleTalk, a bodybuilding website, with the intention of providing the recommended daily amounts (RDAs) of nutrients as stipulated by the European Food Safety Authority, in a vegan and environmentally friendly product.


title: Huel

text: The first Huel product was shipped in June 2015. A version for gluten-free diets was launched in 2016, and Huel began shipping to the rest of Europe. In June 2017, it became available in the United States.


title: Huel

text: In November 2017, former Life Health Foods UK chief executive James McMaster was appointed as chief executive officer of the company to oversee its international expansion.


title: Huel

text: Huel powder was released in 2015 and is sold in 1.7 kg white bags. Its ingredients contain oats, rice, pea protein, and micronutrients. Huel Powder is made up of 37% carbohydrates, 30% fat, 30% protein, and 3% fibre. Black Edition was released in December 2019, it contains 50% fewer carbohydrates, 33% more protein compared to the original Huel powder and is sweetened with stevia and organic coconut sugar, instead of artificial sweetener.


title: Huel

text: In March 2016, an article in "Coach Mag" described Huel's basic flavour as "underwhelming", though the reviewer noted that the taste can be improved substantially with flavour boosts and home recipes.


title: Huel

text: In May 2016, after a week-long Huel-only diet, journalist Peter Robinson wrote that "there are lumps in the mixture" and stated: "Huel doesn't just sound like the act of vomiting, it actually feels like doing it backwards."


title: Huel

text: In February 2017, after a week-long trial, Tom Ough, a journalist for "The Daily Telegraph", described his Huel-only diet as "struggling to get enough down me to hit anywhere near my 2000-calorie RDA", saying: "I got bored of having the same thing all the time, but have lost well over three kilos despite finding it filling. I've also felt healthy throughout the experiment." He concluded that Huel was "very good", but better when used only occasionally.


title: Salted bomb

text: A salted bomb is a nuclear weapon designed to function as a radiological weapon, producing enhanced quantities of radioactive fallout, rendering a large area uninhabitable. The term is derived both from the means of their manufacture, which involves the incorporation of additional elements to a standard atomic weapon, and from the expression "to salt the earth", meaning to render an area uninhabitable for generations. The idea originated with Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard, in February 1950. His intent was not to propose that such a weapon be built, but to show that nuclear weapon technology would soon reach the point where it could end human life on Earth.


title: Salted bomb

text: No intentionally salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested, and as far as is publicly known, none has ever been built. However, the UK tested a one-kiloton bomb incorporating a small amount of cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer at their Tadje testing site in Maralinga range, Australia, on September 14, 1957. The Russian triple "taiga" nuclear salvo test, as part of the preliminary March 1971 Pechora–Kama Canal project, converted significant amounts of stable cobalt-59 to radioactive cobalt-60 by fusion-generated neutron activation and this product is responsible for about half of the gamma dose measured at the test site in 2011. The experiment was regarded as a failure and not repeated.


title: Salted bomb

text: A salted bomb should not be confused with a "dirty bomb", which is an ordinary explosive bomb containing radioactive material which is spread over the area when the bomb explodes. A salted bomb is able to contaminate a much larger area than a dirty bomb.


title: Salted bomb

text: Salted versions of both fission and fusion weapons can be made by surrounding the core of the explosive device with a material containing an element that can be converted to a highly radioactive isotope by neutron bombardment. When the bomb explodes, the element absorbs neutrons released by the nuclear reaction, converting it to its radioactive form. The explosion scatters the resulting radioactive material over a wide area, leaving it uninhabitable far longer than an area affected by typical nuclear weapons. In a salted hydrogen bomb, the radiation case around the fusion fuel, which normally is made of some fissionable element, is replaced with a metallic salting element. Salted fission bombs can be made by replacing the neutron reflector between the fissionable core and the explosive layer with a metallic element. The energy yield from a salted weapon is usually lower than from an ordinary weapon of similar size as a consequence of these changes.


title: Salted bomb

text: The radioactive isotope used for the fallout material would be a high-intensity gamma ray emitter, with a half-life long enough that it remains lethal for an extended period. It would also have to have a chemistry that causes it to return to earth as fallout, rather than stay in the atmosphere after being vaporized in the explosion. Another consideration is biological: radioactive isotopes of elements normally taken up by plants and animals as nutrition would pose a special threat to organisms that absorbed them, as their radiation would be delivered from within the body of the organism.


title: Salted bomb

text: Radioactive isotopes that have been suggested for salted bombs include gold-198, tantalum-182, zinc-65, and cobalt-60. Physicist W. H. Clark looked at the potential of such devices and estimated that a 20 megaton bomb salted with sodium would generate sufficient radiation to contaminate (an area that is slightly larger than Spain or Thailand, though smaller than France). Given the intensity of the gamma radiation, not even those in basement shelters could survive within the fallout zone. However, the short half-life of sodium-24 (15 h) would mean that the radiation would not spread far enough to be a true doomsday weapon.


title: Salted bomb

text: A cobalt bomb was first suggested by Leo Szilard, who publicly sounded the alarm against the possible development of a salted thermonuclear bombs that might annihilate mankind in a University of Chicago Round Table radio program on February 26, 1950. His comments, as well as those of Hans Bethe, Harrison Brown, and Frederick Seitz (the three other scientists who participated in the program), were attacked by the Atomic Energy Commission's former Chairman David Lilienthal, and the criticisms plus a response from Szilard were published. "Time" compared Szilard to Chicken Little while the AEC dismissed his ideas, but scientists debated whether it was feasible or not. The "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" commissioned a study by James R. Arnold, who concluded that it was. Clark suggested that a 50 megaton cobalt bomb did have the potential to produce sufficient long-lasting radiation to be a doomsday weapon, in theory, but was of the view that, even then, "enough people might find refuge to wait out the radioactivity and emerge to begin again."


title: Evidence

text: Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field.


title: Evidence

text: In epistemology, evidence is what justifies beliefs or what makes it rational to hold a certain doxastic attitude. For example, a perceptual experience of a tree may act as evidence that justifies the belief that there is a tree. In this role, evidence is usually understood as a private mental state. Important topics in this field include the questions of what the nature of these mental states is, for example, whether they have to be propositional, and whether misleading mental states can still qualify as evidence. In phenomenology, evidence is understood in a similar sense. Here, however, it is limited to intuitive knowledge that provides immediate access to truth and is therefore indubitable. In this role, it is supposed to provide ultimate justifications for basic philosophical principles and thus turn philosophy into a rigorous science. However, it is highly controversial whether evidence can meet these requirements. Other fields, including the sciences and the law, tend to emphasize more the public nature of evidence (for example, scientists tend to focus on how the data used during statistical inference are generated). In philosophy of science, evidence is understood as that which "confirms" or "disconfirms" scientific hypotheses. Measurements of Mercury's "anomalous" orbit, for example, are seen as evidence that confirms Einstein's theory of general relativity. In order to play the role of neutral arbiter between competing theories, it is important that scientific evidence is "public" and "uncontroversial", like observable physical objects or events, so that the proponents of the different theories can agree on what the evidence is. This is ensured by following the scientific method and tends to lead to an emerging scientific consensus through the gradual accumulation of evidence. Two issues for the scientific conception of evidence are the problem of underdetermination, i.e. that the available evidence may support competing theories equally well, and theory-ladenness, i.e. that what some scientists consider the evidence to be may already involve various theoretical assumptions not shared by other scientists. It is often held that there are two kinds of evidence: "intellectual evidence" or what is self-evident and "empirical evidence" or evidence accessible through the senses.


title: Evidence

text: In order for something to act as evidence for a hypothesis, it has to stand in the right relation to it. In philosophy, this is referred to as the "evidential relation" and there are competing theories about what this relation has to be like. Probabilistic approaches hold that something counts as evidence if it increases the probability of the supported hypothesis. According to hypothetico-deductivism, evidence consists in observational consequences of the hypothesis. The positive-instance approach states that an observation sentence is evidence for a universal hypothesis if the sentence describes a positive instance of this hypothesis. The evidential relation can occur in various degrees of strength. These degrees range from direct proof of the truth of a hypothesis to weak evidence that is merely consistent with the hypothesis but does not rule out other, competing hypotheses, as in circumstantial evidence.


title: Evidence

text: In law, rules of evidence govern the types of evidence that are admissible in a legal proceeding. Types of legal evidence include testimony, documentary evidence, and physical evidence. The parts of a legal case that are not in controversy are known, in general, as the "facts of the case." Beyond any facts that are undisputed, a judge or jury is usually tasked with being a trier of fact for the other issues of a case. Evidence and rules are used to decide questions of fact that are disputed, some of which may be determined by the legal burden of proof relevant to the case. Evidence in certain cases (e.g. capital crimes) must be more compelling than in other situations (e.g. minor civil disputes), which drastically affects the quality and quantity of evidence necessary to decide a case.


title: Evidence

text: Understood in its broadest sense, evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. Traditionally, the term is sometimes understood in a narrower sense: as the intuitive knowledge of facts that are considered indubitable. In this sense, only the singular form is used. This meaning is found especially in phenomenology, in which evidence is elevated to one of the basic principles of philosophy, giving philosophy the ultimate justifications that are supposed to turn it into a rigorous science. In a more modern usage, the plural form is also used. In academic discourse, evidence plays a central role in epistemology and in the philosophy of science. Reference to evidence is made in many different fields, like in science, in the legal system, in history, in journalism and in everyday discourse. A variety of different attempts have been made to conceptualize the nature of evidence. These attempts often proceed by starting with intuitions from one field or in relation to one theoretical role played by evidence and go on to generalize these intuitions, leading to a universal definition of evidence.


title: Evidence

text: One important intuition is that evidence is what justifies beliefs. This line of thought is usually followed in epistemology and tends to explain evidence in terms of private mental states, for example, as experiences, other beliefs or knowledge. This is closely related to the idea that how rational someone is, is determined by how they respond to evidence. Another intuition, which is more dominant in the philosophy of science, focuses on evidence as that which confirms scientific hypotheses and arbitrates between competing theories. On this view, it is essential that evidence is public so that different scientists can share the same evidence. This leaves publicly observable phenomena like physical objects and events as the best candidates for evidence, unlike private mental states. One problem with these approaches is that the resulting definitions of evidence, both within a field and between fields, vary a lot and are incompatible with each other. For example, it is not clear what a bloody knife and a perceptual experience have in common when both are treated as evidence in different disciplines. This suggests that there is no unitary concept corresponding to the different theoretical roles ascribed to evidence, i.e. that we do not always mean the same thing when we talk of evidence.


title: Evidence

text: Important theorists of evidence include Bertrand Russell, Willard Van Orman Quine, the logical positivists, Timothy Williamson, Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. Russell, Quine and the logical positivists belong to the empiricist tradition and hold that evidence consists in sense data, stimulation of one's sensory receptors and observation statements, respectively. According to Williamson, all and only knowledge constitute evidence. Conee and Feldman hold that only one's current mental states should be considered evidence.


title: Evidence

text: The guiding intuition within epistemology concerning the role of evidence is that it is what justifies beliefs. For example, Phoebe's auditory experience of the music justifies her belief that the speakers are on. Evidence has to be possessed by the believer in order to play this role. So Phoebe's own experiences can justify her own beliefs but not someone else's beliefs. Some philosophers hold that evidence possession is restricted to conscious mental states, for example, to sense data. This view has the implausible consequence that many of simple everyday-beliefs would be unjustified. The more common view is that all kinds of mental states, including stored beliefs that are currently unconscious, can act as evidence. It is sometimes argued that the possession of a mental state capable of justifying another is not sufficient for the justification to happen. The idea behind this line of thought is that justified belief has to be connected to or grounded in the mental state acting as its evidence. So Phoebe's belief that the speakers are on is not justified by her auditory experience if the belief is not based in this experience. This would be the case, for example, if Phoebe has both the experience and the belief but is unaware of the fact that the music is produced by the speakers.


title: Evidence

text: It is sometimes held that only propositional mental states can play this role, a position known as "propositionalism". A mental state is propositional if it is an attitude directed at a propositional content. Such attitudes are usually expressed by verbs like "believe" together with a that-clause, as in "Robert believes that the corner shop sells milk". Such a view denies that sensory impressions can act as evidence. This is often held as an argument against this view since sensory impressions are commonly treated as evidence. Propositionalism is sometimes combined with the view that only attitudes to true propositions can count as evidence. On this view, the belief that the corner shop sells milk only constitutes evidence for the belief that the corner shop sells dairy products if the corner shop actually sells milk. Against this position, it has been argued that evidence can be misleading but still count as evidence.


title: Evidence

text: This line of thought is often combined with the idea that evidence, propositional or otherwise, determines what it is rational for us to believe. But it can be rational to have a false belief. This is the case when we possess misleading evidence. For example, it was rational for Neo in the Matrix movie to believe that he was living in the 20th century because of all the evidence supporting his belief despite the fact that this evidence was misleading since it was part of a simulated reality. This account of evidence and rationality can also be extended to other doxastic attitudes, like disbelief and suspension of belief. So rationality does not just demand that we believe something if we have decisive evidence for it, it also demands that we disbelieve something if we have decisive evidence against it and that we suspend belief if we lack decisive evidence either way.


title: Evidence

text: The meaning of the term "evidence" in phenomenology shows many parallels to its epistemological usage, but it is understood in a narrower sense. Thus, evidence here specifically refers to intuitive knowledge, which is described as "self-given" (). This contrasts with empty intentions, in which one refers to states of affairs through a certain opinion, but without an intuitive presentation. This is why evidence is often associated with the controversial thesis that it constitutes an immediate access to truth. In this sense, the evidently given phenomenon guarantees its own truth and is therefore considered indubitable. Due to this special epistemological status of evidence, it is regarded in phenomenology as the basic principle of all philosophy. In this form, it represents the lowest foundation of knowledge, which consists of indubitable insights upon which all subsequent knowledge is built. This evidence-based method is meant to make it possible for philosophy to overcome many of the traditionally unresolved disagreements and thus become a rigorous science. This far-reaching claim of phenomenology, based on absolute certainty, is one of the focal points of criticism by its opponents. Thus, it has been argued that even knowledge based on self-evident intuition is fallible. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that even among phenomenologists, there is much disagreement about the basic structures of experience.


title: Evidence

text: In the sciences, evidence is understood as what "confirms" or "disconfirms" scientific hypotheses. The term "confirmation" is sometimes used synonymously with that of "evidential support". Measurements of Mercury's "anomalous" orbit, for example, are seen as evidence that confirms Einstein's theory of general relativity. This is especially relevant for choosing between competing theories. So in the case above, evidence plays the role of "neutral arbiter" between Newton's and Einstein's theory of gravitation. This is only possible if scientific evidence is "public" and "uncontroversial" so that proponents of competing scientific theories agree on what evidence is available. These requirements suggest scientific evidence consists not of "private mental states" but of "public physical objects or events".


title: Evidence

text: It is often held that evidence is in some sense prior to the hypotheses it confirms. This was sometimes understood as "temporal priority", i.e. that we come first to possess the evidence and later form the hypothesis through induction. But this temporal order is not always reflected in scientific practice, where experimental researchers may look for a specific piece of evidence in order to confirm or disconfirm a pre-existing hypothesis. Logical positivists, on the other hand, held that this priority is "semantic" in nature, i.e. that the meanings of the theoretical terms used in the hypothesis are determined by what would count as evidence for them. Counterexamples for this view come from the fact that our idea of what counts as evidence may change while the meanings of the corresponding theoretical terms remain constant. The most plausible view is that this priority is "epistemic" in nature, i.e. that our belief in a hypothesis is justified based on the evidence while the justification for the belief in the evidence does not depend on the hypothesis.


title: Evidence

text: A central issue for the scientific conception of evidence is the problem of underdetermination, i.e. that the evidence available supports competing theories equally well. So, for example, evidence from our everyday life about how gravity works confirms Newton's and Einstein's theory of gravitation equally well and is therefore unable to establish consensus among scientists. But in such cases, it is often the gradual accumulation of evidence that eventually leads to an emerging consensus. This evidence-driven process towards consensus seems to be one hallmark of the sciences not shared by other fields.


title: Evidence

text: Another problem for the conception of evidence in terms of confirmation of hypotheses is that what some scientists consider the evidence to be may already involve various theoretical assumptions not shared by other scientists. This phenomenon is known as theory-ladenness. Some cases of theory-ladenness are relatively uncontroversial, for example, that the numbers output by a measurement device need additional assumptions about how this device works and what was measured in order to count as meaningful evidence. Other putative cases are more controversial, for example, the idea that different people or cultures perceive the world through different, incommensurable conceptual schemes, leading them to very different impressions about what is the case and what evidence is available. Theory-ladenness threatens to impede the role of evidence as neutral arbiter since these additional assumptions may favor some theories over others. It could thereby also undermine a consensus to emerge since the different parties may be unable to agree even on what the evidence is. When understood in the widest sense, it is not controversial that some form of theory-ladenness exists. But it is questionable whether it constitutes a serious threat to scientific evidence when understood in this sense.


title: Evidence

text: Philosophers in the 20th century started to investigate the "evidential relation", the relation between evidence and the proposition supported by it. The issue of the nature of the evidential relation concerns the question of what this relation has to be like in order for one thing to justify a belief or to confirm a hypothesis. Important theories in this field include the "probabilistic approach", "hypothetico-deductivism" and the "positive-instance approach".


title: Evidence

text: "Probabilistic approaches", also referred to as Bayesian confirmation theory, explain the evidential relation in terms of probabilities. They hold that all that is necessary is that the existence of the evidence increases the likelihood that the hypothesis is true. This can be expressed mathematically as formula_1. In words: a piece of evidence (E) confirms a hypothesis (H) if the conditional probability of this hypothesis relative to the evidence is higher than the unconditional probability of the hypothesis by itself. Smoke (E), for example, is evidence that there is a fire (H), because the two usually occur together, which is why the likelihood of fire given that there is smoke is higher than the likelihood of fire by itself. On this view, evidence is akin to an indicator or a symptom of the truth of the hypothesis. Against this approach, it has been argued that it is too liberal because it allows accidental generalizations as evidence. Finding a nickel in one's pocket, for example, raises the probability of the hypothesis that "All the coins in my pockets are nickels". But, according to Alvin Goldman, it should not be considered evidence for this hypothesis since there is no lawful connection between this one nickel and the other coins in the pocket.