If the true hypothesis is comparatively implausible, the plausibility assessments merely slow down the rate at which it comes to dominate its rivals, reflecting the idea that extraordinary hypotheses require extraordinary evidence (or an extraordinary accumulation of evidence) to overcome their initial implausibilities.
Yet the outcome of Slager's trial should remind us of something we have known since the Rodney King verdict, twenty-four yeago ago: even video evidence cannot overcome subjective bias in the criminal-justice system.
But as head of the national watchdog for the breast cancer movement, I see that even powerful evidence cannot overcome the vested interests of many of the largest cancer organizations in the country – nonprofits like the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the Susan G Komen Foundation – which continue to push screening mammograms without caution.
"An individual objector that doesn't have a lot of resources was probably not going to make an adequate case with sufficient evidence to overcome the city's arguments on those issues," said Michael A. Sweet, a bankruptcy lawyer with the firm Fox Rothschild.
It is clear that for most of them, no amount of scientific evidence would overcome their beliefs, a more entrenched position even than that taken by level 1 rejecters.
As with any Bayesian reasoning, a prior probability close to zero (or one) requires a lot of evidence to overcome; in this case, we would conclude that a sample with a high proportion of blue items was most likely a coincidence, and the posterior probability of the sample matching the population would still not be high.
Earlier this month, a federal judge said he was "seriously concerned" about whether the plaintiffs will have enough new evidence to overcome the Supreme Court ruling.
Still, Georgia Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Wilson ruled last month that Hill "has not cited any new law or any new evidence to overcome the procedural bar" to raising an appeals issue that had already been settled.
