6 ms·

What's amusing is that Bayesian reasoning is what human beings do all the time. Most of the -isms that people can do (racism, sexism, ageism, etc) have to do w

What's amusing is that Bayesian reasoning is what human beings do all the time. Most of the -isms that people can do (racism, sexism, ageism, etc) have to do with taking the prior (what already I know about other similar people) and applying that knowledge to the new person. It's "too hard to understand" and yet all kinds of people are doing it every day.

squidfood 11y ago
Practically speaking, modern science applies priors via funding decisions. Only variables that fall within the range what funders consider "worth testing" will be tested.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  In theory this is the case, but in practice since nobody actually checks on what you spend the money on you can spend a fairly large chunk of resources on whatever idea you want. You just need to ensure you put enough effort into whatever area you can get money for to allow renewal.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
streptomycin 11y ago
Frequentist: Here's a couple formulas that kind of make sense. Plug in your data and go. Bayesian: Here's Bayes' theorem, a single formula that makes perfect sense! See, it's simpler, right? What, you want to use it? Something something beta distribution something something Markov chain Monte Carlo something something - okay, got it? Good luck teaching that to undergrads. In the real world, intro stats classes are taken mostly by people with little math background, no programming background, little interest in statistics, and little innate talent for any of those things. With the frequentist approach, at least they have a fucking chance.
- asgard1024 11y ago
  I don't know about you, but I found Bayesian approach much more intuitive than frequentist one. The only reason to use frequentist approach is to have a procedure that you can do with pencil and paper on real problems (and unlike Bayesian methods only under some often weird assumptions). But with computers and statistical packages, that need is going away.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  I agree that frequentist methods are more amenable to teaching students to apply rote formulas that they do not understand. I do not agree that this is a feature. Quite the contrary.
  - jerven 11y ago
    I think it is easier to do frequest statistics "ok", then to asses whether your priors are going to be any good. Especially when looking at systems we don't really understand very well.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - streptomycin 11y ago
    Whether it's a feature or not is subjective. And I think I mostly agree with you - it's probably bad that we're encouraging the application of bad statistics. But the alternative isn't just replacing bad with good, it'd be more like telling ~98% of the science majors in the country, "hey, you're too dumb to do real statistics, so please just stop trying". I can't see that realistically happening.
jonahx 11y ago
Bayesian thinking is so pervasive, and in most cases so unconsicous, that you don't even have to look that far. "Where did my keys go?" They vanished into thin air is not even considered, because its prior is zero. I must have put them somewhere else is the instant frontrunner, because I do it so often. After much unsuccessful searching, hypotheses such as "someone is playing a joke on me" or "my wife accidentally grabbed them" might be considered -- low priors that require additional evidence. Probably only after noticing something like a broken window would "someone broke in and stole them" be considered -- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And so on...
dalke 11y ago
"what already I know about other similar people" But it doesn't work that way. Some properties get associated to members of a class, while others do not. Let's take discrimination on the basis of blood type personality theory in parts of Asia. Many people in Japan believe that one's personality is strongly affected by one's blood type. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_personality_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_personality_theory : > Many people have been discriminated against because of their blood type. Employers ask blood types during interviews despite the warnings they have been given. Children at schools have been split up according to their blood type. The national softball team has customized training to fit each player's blood type. Companies have given work assignments according to their employee's blood type. Yet all evidence is that there is no basis for this form of discrimination. It's pseudoscience akin to discrimination based on one's astrological sign. So it's clear that discrimination can rise even without a meaningful prior for a given attribute. We can also look at left- vs. right-handedness for an example of varying levels of discrimination even when the underlying genetics and thus putative justification for discrimination hasn't changed. To copy a quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people#Forced_use_of_right_hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_peopl... : > "I was educated in the USA in Catholic school in the 60s. My left hand was beaten until it was swollen, so I would use my right right [sic] hand" ... "I had a teacher who would smack my left hand with a yardstick every time she caught me writing with my left hand" ... "My fourth grade teacher [...] would force me to use my right hand to perform all of my school work. If she caught me using my left hand, I was hit in the head with a dictionary. It turned out that she believed left handers were connected with Satan." Since we know that discrimination can arise without a prior, and the level of discrimination can change even the prior does not change, it's not clear that Bayesian reasoning is a good way to understand the issue. In addition, it doesn't help understand why some factors are used to define 'similar people' while others are not. Men are far more likely to be involved in crime in the US, including domestic terrorism to white collar crime, but aren't universally discriminated against for being a member of that class. Or on the topic of white collar crime, editorials like 'Wall Street Criminals Are Still a Protected Class in America' at http://www.vice.com/read/wall-street-criminals-are-still-a-protected-class-in-america-808 http://www.vice.com/read/wall-street-criminals-are-still-a-p... highlight how the Bayesian prior is outright ignored. Thus, I'm not convinced that humans really use Bayesian reasoning as the basis for -isms.

squidfood 11y ago

Practically speaking, modern science applies priors via funding decisions. Only variables that fall within the range what funders consider "worth testing" will be tested.

danieltillett 11y ago
In theory this is the case, but in practice since nobody actually checks on what you spend the money on you can spend a fairly large chunk of resources on whatever idea you want. You just need to ensure you put enough effort into whatever area you can get money for to allow renewal.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

streptomycin 11y ago

Frequentist: Here's a couple formulas that kind of make sense. Plug in your data and go. Bayesian: Here's Bayes' theorem, a single formula that makes perfect sense! See, it's simpler, right? What, you want to use it? Something something beta distribution something something Markov chain Monte Carlo something something - okay, got it? Good luck teaching that to undergrads. In the real world, intro stats classes are taken mostly by people with little math background, no programming background, little interest in statistics, and little innate talent for any of those things. With the frequentist approach, at least they have a fucking chance.

asgard1024 11y ago
I don't know about you, but I found Bayesian approach much more intuitive than frequentist one. The only reason to use frequentist approach is to have a procedure that you can do with pencil and paper on real problems (and unlike Bayesian methods only under some often weird assumptions). But with computers and statistical packages, that need is going away.
Turing_Machine 11y ago
I agree that frequentist methods are more amenable to teaching students to apply rote formulas that they do not understand. I do not agree that this is a feature. Quite the contrary.
- jerven 11y ago
  I think it is easier to do frequest statistics "ok", then to asses whether your priors are going to be any good. Especially when looking at systems we don't really understand very well.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- streptomycin 11y ago
  Whether it's a feature or not is subjective. And I think I mostly agree with you - it's probably bad that we're encouraging the application of bad statistics. But the alternative isn't just replacing bad with good, it'd be more like telling ~98% of the science majors in the country, "hey, you're too dumb to do real statistics, so please just stop trying". I can't see that realistically happening.

jonahx 11y ago

Bayesian thinking is so pervasive, and in most cases so unconsicous, that you don't even have to look that far. "Where did my keys go?" They vanished into thin air is not even considered, because its prior is zero. I must have put them somewhere else is the instant frontrunner, because I do it so often. After much unsuccessful searching, hypotheses such as "someone is playing a joke on me" or "my wife accidentally grabbed them" might be considered -- low priors that require additional evidence. Probably only after noticing something like a broken window would "someone broke in and stole them" be considered -- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And so on...

dalke 11y ago

"what already I know about other similar people" But it doesn't work that way. Some properties get associated to members of a class, while others do not. Let's take discrimination on the basis of blood type personality theory in parts of Asia. Many people in Japan believe that one's personality is strongly affected by one's blood type. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_personality_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_personality_theory : > Many people have been discriminated against because of their blood type. Employers ask blood types during interviews despite the warnings they have been given. Children at schools have been split up according to their blood type. The national softball team has customized training to fit each player's blood type. Companies have given work assignments according to their employee's blood type. Yet all evidence is that there is no basis for this form of discrimination. It's pseudoscience akin to discrimination based on one's astrological sign. So it's clear that discrimination can rise even without a meaningful prior for a given attribute. We can also look at left- vs. right-handedness for an example of varying levels of discrimination even when the underlying genetics and thus putative justification for discrimination hasn't changed. To copy a quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people#Forced_use_of_right_hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_peopl... : > "I was educated in the USA in Catholic school in the 60s. My left hand was beaten until it was swollen, so I would use my right right [sic] hand" ... "I had a teacher who would smack my left hand with a yardstick every time she caught me writing with my left hand" ... "My fourth grade teacher [...] would force me to use my right hand to perform all of my school work. If she caught me using my left hand, I was hit in the head with a dictionary. It turned out that she believed left handers were connected with Satan." Since we know that discrimination can arise without a prior, and the level of discrimination can change even the prior does not change, it's not clear that Bayesian reasoning is a good way to understand the issue. In addition, it doesn't help understand why some factors are used to define 'similar people' while others are not. Men are far more likely to be involved in crime in the US, including domestic terrorism to white collar crime, but aren't universally discriminated against for being a member of that class. Or on the topic of white collar crime, editorials like 'Wall Street Criminals Are Still a Protected Class in America' at http://www.vice.com/read/wall-street-criminals-are-still-a-protected-class-in-america-808 http://www.vice.com/read/wall-street-criminals-are-still-a-p... highlight how the Bayesian prior is outright ignored. Thus, I'm not convinced that humans really use Bayesian reasoning as the basis for -isms.