# Evidence Against Evidence Theory (?!)

## TL;DR

This paper critically examines the limitations of the Mathematical Theory of Evidence, especially its connection to frequencies, and proposes a new frequency-based interpretation to address these issues.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel frequency-based interpretation of belief functions that overcomes previous drawbacks and clarifies the relationship to empirical data.

## Key findings

- Existing interpretations have significant drawbacks.
- The new interpretation aligns belief functions with empirical frequencies.
- This approach enhances the practical applicability of evidence theory.

## Abstract

This paper is concerned with the apparent greatest weakness of the Mathematical Theory of Evidence (MTE) of Shafer \cite{Shafer:76}, which has been strongly criticized by Wasserman \cite{Wasserman:92ijar} - the relationship to frequencies. Weaknesses of various proposals of probabilistic interpretation of MTE belief functions are demonstrated. A new frequency-based interpretation is presented overcoming various drawbacks of earlier interpretations.