Friday,
24 September 2004
Statistics for Bayesian
Philosophers (and some others)
Jason Grossman
History & Philosophy
of Science, University
of Sydney
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Abstract: For the sake of argument, let us fix
the following sets of hypotheses and possible observations, and
the probabilities assigned to each observation by each hypothesis:
frog
bunny philosopher
seminar
room 0.041 0.009
0.95
swamp 0.949
0.001
0.05
Suppose we observe a philosopher. I will discuss principles of statistical
inference, dividing them into those which say that we should tentatively
conclude that we're in a swamp and those which say we should tentatively
conclude that we're in a seminar room.
I will touch on the problem of including additional evidence
in this judgment.
I will draw conclusions on behalf of various well-defined groups
of philosophers, including Bayesians (of either of two sorts) and
those who accept the likelihood principle.
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