» Are you a frequentist or a Bayesian? Talk Islam

thabet

01:15:11 am on May 2, 2008 | # | |
Tags: mathematics, philosophy

Are you a frequentist or a Bayesian?
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aziz 5:42 am on May 2, 2008 | #

going by the definitions here - http://tinyurl.com/46lp6z

I’d say that if we have a-priori information, we might as well use it, but i am still more “comfortable” as a frequentist and would tend towards it wheneverthe aprioris were not available, or (subjectively speaking) trustworthy.

its better to select from tools in the toolbox than be dogmatic about it. You dont hear people asking the question, are you a Pearson’s or a Spearman’s correlator?
aasem 9:01 am on May 2, 2008 | #

Being closely attached with the field of Estimation Theory and Stochastic Processes, I would argue that both approaches cover their own domains well.

As far as Communication or Adaptive Processing is concerned, one has to be a Bayesian while testing an hypothesis or making a decision. However a Bayesian formulation of problem requires the knowledge of a priori probabilities which are usually assigned by frequentist interpretive methods.

But that is only from a scientist’s POV As far as philosophy is concerned I am a Bayesian.
aziz 9:54 am on May 3, 2008 | #

techically, a frequentist would answer either “1″ or “0″, whereas a bayesian could only answer “P”
razib 9:25 pm on May 4, 2008 | #

ultimately we are all bayesians, but proximately we are frequentists? it’s like programming languages; use what works.

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