Related papers: The anti-Bayesian moment and its passing
Argumentation is a promising model for reasoning with uncertain knowledge. The key concept of acceptability enables to differentiate arguments and counterarguments: The certainty of a proposition can then be evaluated through the most…
This paper addresses the problem of non-Bayesian learning over multi-agent networks, where agents repeatedly collect partially informative observations about an unknown state of the world, and try to collaboratively learn the true state. We…
We study the stability of posterior predictive inferences to the specification of the likelihood model and perturbations of the data generating process. In modern big data analyses, useful broad structural judgements may be elicited from…
Background: Confirmation bias is the tendency to acquire or evaluate new information in a way that is consistent with one's preexisting beliefs. It is omnipresent in psychology, economics, and even scientific practices. Prior theoretical…
The Bayesian statistical paradigm provides a principled and coherent approach to probabilistic forecasting. Uncertainty about all unknowns that characterize any forecasting problem -- model, parameters, latent states -- is able to be…
The Bayesian method is noted to produce spuriously high posterior probabilities for phylogenetic trees in analysis of large datasets, but the precise reasons for this over-confidence are unknown. In general, the performance of Bayesian…
This paper is motivated by the questions of how to give the concept of probability an adequate real-world meaning, and how to explain a certain type of phenomenon that can be found, for instance, in Ellsberg's paradox. It attempts to answer…
This paper proposes a careful separation between an entity's epistemic system and their decision system. Crucially, Bayesian counterfactuals are estimated by the epistemic system; not by the decision system. Based on this remark, I prove…
In a probability-based reasoning system, Bayes' theorem and its variations are often used to revise the system's beliefs. However, if the explicit conditions and the implicit conditions of probability assignments `me properly distinguished,…
It is often claimed that Bayesian methods, in particular Bayes factor methods for hypothesis testing, can deal with optional stopping. We first give an overview, using elementary probability theory, of three different mathematical meanings…
Here we focus on the description of the mechanisms behind the process of information aggregation and decision making, a basic step to understand emergent phenomena in society, such as trends, information spreading or the wisdom of crowds.…
In Bayesian statistics, one's prior beliefs about underlying model parameters are revised with the information content of observed data from which, using Bayes' rule, a posterior belief is obtained. A non-trivial example taken from the…
The choice of the summary statistics used in Bayesian inference and in particular in ABC algorithms has bearings on the validation of the resulting inference. Those statistics are nonetheless customarily used in ABC algorithms without…
After making some general remarks, I consider two examples that illustrate the use of Bayesian Probability Theory. The first is a simple one, the physicist's favorite "toy," that provides a forum for a discussion of the key conceptual issue…
Here we argue that the notion of falsifiability, a key concept in defining a valid scientific theory, can be quantified using Bayesian Model Selection, which is a standard tool in modern statistics. This relates falsifiability to the…
In this paper we discuss contrastive explanations for formal argumentation - the question why a certain argument (the fact) can be accepted, whilst another argument (the foil) cannot be accepted under various extension-based semantics. The…
In recent years, the literature in the area of Bayesian asymptotics has been rapidly growing. It is increasingly important to understand the concept of posterior consistency and validate specific Bayesian methods, in terms of consistency of…
Empirical research in Natural Language Processing (NLP) has adopted a narrow set of principles for assessing hypotheses, relying mainly on p-value computation, which suffers from several known issues. While alternative proposals have been…
The Bayes factor, the data-based updating factor of the prior to posterior odds of two hypotheses, is a natural measure of statistical evidence for one hypothesis over the other. We show how Bayes factors can also be used for parameter…
Discussion of "Frequentist coverage of adaptive nonparametric Bayesian credible sets" by Szab\'o, van der Vaart and van Zanten [arXiv:1310.4489v5].