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Philosophy

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    I think that it is only descriptive, see Robustness. Commented Mar 28 at 18:33
  • While neither variance nor statistical significance is mentioned in the paper, I get the impression that the author has something like it in mind: if an event such as a particular series of coin-tosses is statistically improbable on the assumption of a fair coin, then we should consider that hypothesis to be flimsy, not robust... In your "Honest Bob" example, if we did find out he cheated, then we move from robust vs. flimsy to true vs. false; absent that knowledge, supposing that he did not cheat looks robust - unless there's a robust (plausible) reason to suspect he did cheat this time. Commented Mar 28 at 23:59
  • If we understand how a designer could do something, and there is a motive, then that makes sense. If a designer isn't needed for an explanation, that makes even more sense. An explanation which basically doesn't have to explain anything is best. Commented Mar 29 at 1:51
  • It seems like you're just describing Occam's Razor. The "robust" argument is the one that requires fewer assumptions. Commented yesterday