The evaluation of hypotheses

This article is part of the discussion of scientific methodology and its comparison with the ways of thinking typical of religion. The whole thing may seem obvious to you; but some people have apparently not understood what I say here until I spelled it out for them.

The reason for this article is that I have said somewhere that I apply empiricist methodology in all aspects of ordinary life. I can imagine mulish Mensans of the ID persuasion coming out of the woodwork to taunt: “What, do you send your shopping lists for peer review to the editor of New Scientist?” (Silly, boys & girls.)`

Definitions

Proposition: A statement; when considered true, called a “statement of fact”; (but sometimes so called by advocates of adoption of the proposition simply so as to try to persuade others to adopt the proposition in question).
Hypothesis: A proposition of which the absolute truth has not been determined, yet under consideration for adoption by someone as a basis on which to work either for further evaluation of itself or, if its evaluation number is fairly high anyway, as a basis on which to proceed with further reasoning or research on related propositions (the latter typically with far lower current evaluations).
Theory: A set of one or more (up to very many) related propositions related to some field of knowledge or study, adopted together as working hypotheses, providing a coherent description of some subject area in the real world.
Provenance: Details of origin, whether that is of objects (such as antiques and archaeological specimens) or of information, data, reports of observations (including very informal reporting, such as that something happened); these details to include information about each person and channel or medium of communication involved in bringing the matter to general or personal availability.
Reliability, Evaluation, Likelihood: (1) How reliable the proposition is.
(2) The numerical value given to the proposition by my evaluation scheme.

Evaluation basis categories

In order to evaluate a proposition, we must consider: Provenance and Content of relevant data and information. Provenance entails

Source:

if written or stored etc.:
1. where held during its history
2. how long held (date &/or time of creation)
3. in what conditions held
4. who created written or stored record
5. who was author of information
6. characteristics of writing or storage medium with attention to liklihood of damage having occurred and offered material being corrupted, bearing in mind all known or surmised about foregoing questions
7. how author obtained (or might be supposed to have obtained) information
8. credibility/reliability of author’s sources; if these are further records, all of the present questions can reasonably be applied to them if at all tractable, and likewise the following main set of questions if the source was oral.
9. author’s competence to report information accurately enough with regard to modern scientific method and expectations, and to author’s religious beliefs and philosophy (as far as they are known) and to those of the generality of people at the time (iin view of the danger of hostility if statements were made that were unpopular, or at odds with imposed ideology where the author lived .
10. if textual, in what language generated by author and, if that is different from language of offered version, who translated and what errors in translation may have occurred
if the information is audible:
1. where heard (in what country etc.) and what that might tell about it
2. when heard and what that might tell about it
3. in what conditions heard
4. who was originator of information
5. characteristics of sound(s) heard (speech, music, noise, &c.)
6. who or what caused sound
7. if sound was a person speaking, all the same author considerations as for writing namely:
8. author’s competence to report information accurately enough with regard to modern scientific method and expectations, and to author’s religious beliefs and philosophy (as far as they are known) and to those of the generality of people at the time (iin view of the danger of hostility if statements were made that were unpopular, or at odds with imposed ideology where the author lived .
9. if textual, in what language generated by author and, if that is different from language of offered version, who translated and what errors in translation may have occurred

Content

Ought we to expect the information to show regularity or pattern? Does it? Do departures from a pattern suggest minor corruption or genuine exception which may throw light on exceptions required in re-formulation of currently held theories/hypotheses?
How does the information compare with what we have from other sources?
To what extent is the information consistent with currently held hypotheses? What are the points of departure suggesting need for re-evaluation?
Could the information contain good mixed with less good parts? To what extent do such parts of the information set match current hypotheses/theories when taken separately? Is there an overall indifferent match, but a good match of one part and a major depature in another? Is this systematic and does it suggest a major partial reformulation of theory?

A scheme for quantitative evaluation

I have thought of a way of expressing one’s degree of confidence in the reliability of a proposition numerically, using a scale comparable to the concept of a probability (of an event) in probability theory, namely by use of a real number in the closed range 0 to 1 (that is, both extremes included).

Full exposition of this idea.