Why do scholars reject the claim that someone else wrote Shakespeare's plays?

All but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider the claim a fringe theory, and the reason is the kind of evidence that exists. The authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works. It was first raised in the middle of the 19th century, when adulation of Shakespeare had become widespread, and more than 80 candidates have been proposed, the most popular being Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe and William Stanley, Earl of Derby.

The doubters have a real point to start from: the documents about Shakespeare's life are mundane, such as baptism, marriage, tax and property records, and no letters or manuscripts survive. But scholars reply that the evidence connecting Shakespeare to the plays, title pages, testimony by fellow poets and official records, is the same kind used for every other author of his era. No such direct evidence exists for any other candidate. His name was given as that of a well-known writer at least 23 times in his lifetime, and his authorship was questioned neither then nor for centuries after.

Scholars also point out that the argument from missing evidence is an argument from silence, and that reading an author's life out of his works is a habit of the 19th century that was not common in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.