Strong Inference

February 19, 2021 Jeremiah Hendren

Strong Inference

Platt, John R.
Science 146, no. 3642 (1964): 347-353.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0084-5_21

In its separate elements, strong inference is just the simple and old-fashioned method of inductive inference that goes back to Francis Bacon. The steps are familiar to every college student and are practiced, off and on, by every scientist. The difference comes in their systematic application. Strong inference consists of applying the following steps to every problem in science, formally and explicitly and regularly: 1) Devising alternative hypotheses; 2) Devising a crucial experiment (or several of them), with alternative possible outcomes, each of which will, as nearly as possible, exclude one or more of the hypotheses; 3) Carrying out the experiment so as to get a clean result; 1') Recycling the procedure, making subhypotheses or sequential hypotheses to refine the possibilities that remain; and so on.

John R. Platt

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