The Stopping Rule Principle and Confirmational Reliability

Samuel C. Fletcher

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The stopping rule for a sequential experiment is the rule or procedure for determining when that experiment should end. Accordingly, the stopping rule principle (SRP) states that the evidential relationship between the final data from a sequential experiment and a hypothesis under consideration does not depend on the stopping rule: the same data should yield the same evidence, regardless of which stopping rule was used. I clarify and provide a novel defense of two interpretations of the main argument against the SRP, the foregone conclusion argument. According to the first, the SRP allows for highly confirmationally unreliable experiments, which concept I make precise, to confirm highly. According to the second, it entails the evidential equivalence of experiments differing significantly in their confirmational reliability. I rebut several attempts to deflate or deflect the foregone conclusion argument, drawing connections with replication in science and the likelihood principle.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1-28
Number of pages28
JournalJournal for General Philosophy of Science
Volume55
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023.

Keywords

  • Confirmation
  • Likelihood principle
  • Reliability
  • Replication
  • Reproducability
  • Statistical evidence
  • Stopping rules

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