Independent evidence from different sources can converge on the same conclusion.
Whewell coined the term in 1840 for the convergence of independent inductions. Evolution is the standard case: fossils, comparative anatomy, biogeography and genetics converge without depending on each other.
In practice
- A fraud case rests on the phone records, the travel bookings and the accounting entries, none of which depends on the others.
- A medical diagnosis is trusted when the blood test, the imaging and the symptom history point the same way through independent routes.
- Subject
- Science & Epistemology
- Essay
- Rules for weighing claims