315 | Branden Fitelson on the Logic and Use of Probability
2025-05-19 · 89 min · episode 315 · 7 entities
Asserted relationships
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evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Sean Carroll
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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Science
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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Physics
Entities found in this episode
concepts 5
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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Science
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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Physics
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evidence rules-v4
315 | Branden Fitelson on the Logic and Use of Probability
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0.40
evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Science
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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Physics
persons 2
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evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Sean Carroll
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0.55
evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Sean Carroll
Episode description as stored
Every time you see an apple spontaneously break away from a tree, it falls downward. You therefore claim that there is a law of physics: apples fall downward from trees. But how can you really know ? After all, tomorrow you might see an apple that falls upward. How is science possible at all? Philosophers, as you might expect, have thought hard about this. Branden Fitelson explains how a better understanding of probability can help us decide when new evidence is actually confirming our beliefs.
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/05/19/315-branden-fitelson-on-the-logic-and-use-of-probability/
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Branden Fitelson received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University. He is a co-founder of the Formal Epistemology Workshop, and winner of the 2020 Wolfram Innovator Award.
Web site
Northeastern web page
PhilPapers profile
Google Scholar publications
Wikipedia