forum for week of 24 October: Inference to the Best Explanation

These are interesting cases for sure.

I would say that IBE would handle the first case by projecting that the pattern would follow the same direction, just not the same trajectory. For population growth we may not follow the same pattern as the last few hundred years in terms of rate of growth, but the best explanation would include that population will continue to increase, but at a much more extreme rate than before. As for marathon times the opposite is true. IBE would say that marathon times are currently decreasing, but there must be a limit to that. So while its' prediction will not diverge from the current pattern in terms of direction, it will probably suggest that the rate of decreasing times will start to take on a more modest rate.

IBE would handle the patterns only a maniac would project by creatively putting use to the aggregate of the background beliefs society uses to control the risk of taking on new beliefs. Since the ridiculous pattern presumably lacks properties that we associate with relatively more accurate projections, IBE would align itself with an explanation that most closely matches the polar opposite of the maniac's projection.