Inferring and Explaining

v Exercises 77 Quiz Eight 77 Notes 77 9. testImony  79 A Letter of Recommendation 79 Testimony regarding Miracles 82 Exercises 84 Quiz Nine 84 Notes 84 10. textual InterpretatIon  87 Sounds, Shapes, Gestures, and Dashes and Dots 87 Inference to the Best Explanation and Textual Interpretation 88 Authorial Intention 89 A Notorious Interpretation of Hamlet  89 A Contemporary Psychological Interpretation of Hamlet  91 Exercises and Quiz Ten 93 Notes 93 11. statIstIcs  95 What Numbers Can Tell Us 95 Samples and Populations 96 Couldn’t It Just Be a Fluke? 97 Couldn’t the Sample Be Biased? 98 Naomi Oreskes’s Study 100 Rival Explanations of the Sample 101 Te Best Explanation? 103 Exercises 103 Quiz Eleven 104 Notes 104 12. correlatIons anD causes  107 Correlations 107 Explaining the Numbers 108 Explaining the Correlations 108 CO 2 and Global Temperatures 109 Causation and Explanation 111 A Sad Story 112 Exercises 115 Quiz Twelve 115 Notes 115 13. capItal punIshment anD the constItutIon  117 Arguments from Pure Principle: For and against the Death Penalty 117 Constitutional Texts 118 Precedent 119 Inference to the Best Constitutional Interpretation 119 Some Key Constitutional Text 120 Some Key Constitutional Precedent 122 Statistics and the Death Penalty 125 A Causal Explanation of the Correlation 127 Some Other Contingent Realities 128 Exercises 129 Quiz Tirteen 129 Notes 129 14. evIDence, explanatIon, anD narratIve 131 Legal Storytelling 131 O. J. Simpson 133 Abe and His Daughter 134 Stories Tat Make Sense of Tings 135 Mary Ann and Wanda 136 Geneva and Brown v. Board of Education  137 Fabula and Sjuzet 139 Inference to the Best Narrative 140 Exercises 141 Quiz Fourteen 141 Notes 141 Contents