Dempster-Shafer vs. Probabilistic Logic

Abstract: The combination of evidence in Dempster-Shafer theory is compared with the combination of evidence in probabilistic logic. Sufficient conditions are stated for these two methods to agree. It is then shown that these conditions are minimal in the sense that disagreement can occur when any one of them is removed. An example is given in which the traditional assumption of conditional independence of evidence on hypotheses holds and a uniform prior is assumed, but probabilistic logic and Dempster's rule give radically different results for the combination of two evidence events.