5 ms·

IME “bad Bayesian analysis” is when people use plausibly defensible priors to manufacture outcomes… which happens all the fucking time.

analog31 4y ago
Long ago when I was a physics grad student, I distinctly remember that when someone introduced Bayesian statistics in a talk, it was because they were trying to justify weeding outliers from their data by hand. And they always got called to task on it.
- vonwoodson 4y ago
  I think that it’s right to call out scientists who think that math is reality. We made math up, end of story. The “Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics“ is obvious selection bias. Math, statistics, is a tool. I don’t expect my shovel to be a dowsing rod, and I don’t expect my bayesian methods to predict the future. But, shovels do dig wells and probably does, on average, work out; neither is worthy of being disregarded. But, there have literally been folks since Pythagoras‘s time who believe that logic, and math, are The Truth. Like, God: The Truth. Like, it works because it’s the way that nature is, and we understand and control it and it is math… a “Natural Law”. A better scientific mind does not fall for such folly. The “outliers” are the very phenomena that science wants to study. If we can explain the outliers through an error in method, fine. But, if the outliers are not able to be explained then we would never want to gloss over them because they don’t fit our expectations of a mathematical model of reality.
  - hansvm 4y ago
    Was it intentional to conflate math itself (undeniably true assuming the priors) with mathematical modeling (fitting those priors into reality)?
andreareina 4y ago
See the recent Terry Tao post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33078012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33078012 https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/what-are-the-odds/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/what-are-the-odds/

analog31 4y ago

Long ago when I was a physics grad student, I distinctly remember that when someone introduced Bayesian statistics in a talk, it was because they were trying to justify weeding outliers from their data by hand. And they always got called to task on it.

vonwoodson 4y ago
I think that it’s right to call out scientists who think that math is reality. We made math up, end of story. The “Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics“ is obvious selection bias. Math, statistics, is a tool. I don’t expect my shovel to be a dowsing rod, and I don’t expect my bayesian methods to predict the future. But, shovels do dig wells and probably does, on average, work out; neither is worthy of being disregarded. But, there have literally been folks since Pythagoras‘s time who believe that logic, and math, are The Truth. Like, God: The Truth. Like, it works because it’s the way that nature is, and we understand and control it and it is math… a “Natural Law”. A better scientific mind does not fall for such folly. The “outliers” are the very phenomena that science wants to study. If we can explain the outliers through an error in method, fine. But, if the outliers are not able to be explained then we would never want to gloss over them because they don’t fit our expectations of a mathematical model of reality.
- hansvm 4y ago
  Was it intentional to conflate math itself (undeniably true assuming the priors) with mathematical modeling (fitting those priors into reality)?

andreareina 4y ago

See the recent Terry Tao post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33078012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33078012 https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/what-are-the-odds/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/what-are-the-odds/