.
After Jon Williamson’s talk, Objective Bayesianism from a Philosophical Perspective, at the PhilStat forum on May 22, I raised some general “casualties” encountered by objective, non-subjective or default Bayesian accounts, not necessarily Williamson’s. I am pasting those remarks below, followed by some additional remarks and the video of his responses to my main kvetches. Continue reading
.
“The subjective Bayesian theory as developed, for example, by Savage … cannot solve the deceptively simple but actually intractable old evidence problem, whence as a foundation for a logic of confirmation at any rate, it must be accounted a failure.” (Howson, (2017), p. 674)
What? Did the “old evidence” problem cause Colin Howson to recently abdicate his decades long position as a leading subjective Bayesian? It seems to have. I was so surprised to come across this in a recent perusal of Philosophy of Science that I wrote to him to check if it is really true. (It is.) I thought perhaps it was a different Colin Howson, or the son of the one who co-wrote 3 editions of Howson and Urbach: Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach espousing hard-line subjectivism since 1989.[1] I am not sure which of the several paradigms of non-subjective or default Bayesianism Howson endorses (he’d argued for years, convincingly, against any one of them), nor how he handles various criticisms (Kass and Wasserman 1996), I put that aside. Nor have I worked through his, rather complex, paper to the extent necessary, yet. What about the “old evidence” problem, made famous by Clark Glymour 1980? What is it? Continue reading
.
Steven McKinney, Ph.D.
Statistician
Molecular Oncology and Breast Cancer Program
British Columbia Cancer Research Centre
On Bradley Efron’s: “Frequentist Accuracy of Bayesian Estimates”
Bradley Efron has produced another fine set of results, yielding a valuable estimate of variability for a Bayesian estimate derived from a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm, in his latest paper “Frequentist accuracy of Bayesian estimates” (J. R. Statist. Soc. B (2015) 77, Part 3, pp. 617–646). I give a general overview of Efron’s brilliance via his Introduction discussion (his words “in double quotes”).
“1. Introduction
The past two decades have witnessed a greatly increased use of Bayesian techniques in statistical applications. Objective Bayes methods, based on neutral or uniformative priors of the type pioneered by Jeffreys, dominate these applications, carried forward on a wave of popularity for Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms. Good references include Ghosh (2011), Berger (2006) and Kass and Wasserman (1996).”
A nice concise summary, one that should bring joy to anyone interested in Bayesian methods after all the Bayesian-bashing of the middle 20th century. Efron himself has crafted many beautiful results in the Empirical Bayes arena. He has reviewed important differences between Bayesian and frequentist outcomes that point to some as-yet unsettled issues in statistical theory and philosophy such as his scales of evidence work. Continue reading
The recent post by Normal Deviate, and my comments on it, remind me of why/how I got back into the Bayesian-frequentist debates in 2006, as described in my first “deconstruction” (and “U-Phil”) on this blog (Dec 11, 2012):
Some time in 2006 (shortly after my ERROR06 conference), the trickle of irony and sometime flood of family feuds issuing from Bayesian forums drew me back into the Bayesian-frequentist debates.1 2 Suddenly sparks were flying, mostly kept shrouded within Bayesian walls, but nothing can long be kept secret even there. Spontaneous combustion is looming. The true-blue subjectivists were accusing the increasingly popular “objective” and “reference” Bayesians of practicing in bad faith; the new O-Bayesians (and frequentist-Bayesian unificationists) were taking pains to show they were not subjective; and some were calling the new Bayesian kids on the block “pseudo Bayesian.” Then there were the Bayesians somewhere in the middle (or perhaps out in left field) who, though they still use the Bayesian umbrella, were flatly denying the very idea that Bayesian updating fits anything they actually do in statistics.3 Obeisance to Bayesian reasoning remained, but on some kind of a priori philosophical grounds. Doesn’t the methodology used in practice really need a philosophy of its own? I say it does, and I want to provide this. Continue reading
Experts convene to explore new philosophy of statistics field
Error Statistics Philosophy 