ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the problems that face attempts to account for theory confirmation in science through Bayesianism and discusses similar criticisms of the Bayesian model of fact finding in law. As a preliminary, it is worth making some observations about the Bayesian project in law in order to demonstrate why the debate about Bayesianism is important, and to give some idea of the problems facing Bayesianism. The difficulties faced by the Bayesian project start with Bayesianism’s most basic building block: subjective probability. Bayesianism is ‘top-down’ modelling: starting from the assumption that inference should be governed by the probability axioms, it attempts to fill in details, only to find that they sit uneasily with human cognitive practices. Debates about the role of Bayesianism in legal fact finding have been going on now for a number of years. Many of the criticisms of the Bayesian project have been put forward in these debates in some form or another.
