 Barnes rejects the heuristic conception of novelty on the grounds that it is a mistake to think that what matters epistemically is the process by which the theory was constructed—what matters is on what basis the theory was endorsed (2008: 33f) . In the example above, confirmation of N (a consequence of T) could carry special weight for an evaluator who learned that the theorist endorsed the theory without appeal to observational evidence for N (irrespective of how the theory was constructed). He proposes to replace the heuristic conception with his endorsement conception of novelty: N (a known consequence of T) counts as a novel confirmation of T relative to agent X insofar as X posts an endorsement-level probability for T that is based on a body of evidence that does not include observation-based evidence for N. 