Related papers: Bayesian reasoning in cosmology
The application of Bayesian methods in cosmology and astrophysics has flourished over the past decade, spurred by data sets of increasing size and complexity. In many respects, Bayesian methods have proven to be vastly superior to more…
There has been increasing interest by cosmologists in applying Bayesian techniques, such as Bayesian Evidence, for model selection. A typical example is in assessing whether observational data favour a cosmological constant over evolving…
Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. A central issue is what defines a 'good' model. When addressing global properties of the…
Bayesian probability theory is used as a framework to develop a formalism for the scientific method based on principles of inductive reasoning. The formalism allows for precise definitions of the key concepts in theories of physics and also…
In the history of cosmology physical paradoxes played important role for development of contemporary world models. Within the modern standard cosmological model there are both observational and conceptual cosmological paradoxes which…
In cosmology, we would like to explain our observations and predict future observations from theories of the entire universe. Such cosmological theories make ontological assumptions of what entities exist and what their properties and…
The Doomsday argument and anthropic reasoning are two puzzling examples of probabilistic confirmation. In both cases, a lack of knowledge apparently yields surprising conclusions. Since they are formulated within a Bayesian framework, they…
These notes aim at presenting an overview of Bayesian statistics, the underlying concepts and application methodology that will be useful to astronomers seeking to analyse and interpret a wide variety of data about the Universe. The level…
A method is presented for performing joint analyses of cosmological datasets, in which the weight assigned to each dataset is determined directly by it own statistical properties. The weights are considered in a Bayesian context as a set of…
The goal of this thesis is twofold; introduce the fundamentals of Bayesian inference and computation focusing on astronomical and cosmological applications, and present recent advances in probabilistic computational methods developed by the…
In the last two decades, Bayesian inference has become commonplace in astronomy. At the same time, the choice of algorithms, terminology, notation, and interpretation of Bayesian inference varies from one sub-field of astronomy to the next,…
Modern astronomy has been rapidly increasing our ability to see deeper into the universe, acquiring enormous samples of cosmic populations. Gaining astrophysical insights from these datasets requires a wide range of sophisticated…
This article looks at philosophical aspects and questions that modern astrophysical research gives rise to. Other than cosmology, astrophysics particularly deals with understanding phenomena and processes operating at "intermediate" cosmic…
Modern physics is founded on two mainstays: mathematical modelling and empirical verification. These two assumptions are prerequisite for the objectivity of scientific discourse. Here we show, however, that they are contradictory, leading…
Problems with uniform probabilities on an infinite support show up in contemporary cosmology. This paper focuses on the context of inflation theory, where it complicates the assignment of a probability measure over pocket universes. The…
In this paper we consider the issue of paradigm evaluation by applying Bayes' theorem along the following nested hierarchy of progressively more complex structures: i) parameter estimation (within a model), ii) model selection and…
In this paper, using a significantly improved version of the model-independent, cosmographic approach to cosmology (John, M. V. 2004, ApJ, 614, 1), we address an important question: Was there a decelerating past for the universe? To answer…
While Bayesian model selection is a useful tool to discriminate between competing cosmological models, it only gives a relative rather than an absolute measure of how good a model is. Bayesian doubt introduces an unknown benchmark model…
Statistical classical mechanics and quantum mechanics are developed and well-known theories that represent a basis for modern physics. The two described theories are well known and have been well studied. As these theories contain numerous…
We discuss a number of fundamental aspects of modern cosmological concepts, from the phenomenological, observational, theoretical and epistemic points of view. We argue that the modern cosmology, despite a great advent, in particular in the…