Related papers: The Fermi's Bayes Theorem
How to form priors that do not seem artificial or arbitrary is a central question in Bayesian statistics. The case of forming a prior on the truth of a proposition for which there is no evidence, and the definte evidence that the event can…
Bayes [Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 53 (1763) 370--418; 54 296--325] introduced the observed likelihood function to statistical inference and provided a weight function to calibrate the parameter; he also introduced a confidence…
Modern statistical software and machine learning libraries are enabling semi-automated statistical inference. Within this context, it appears easier and easier to try and fit many models to the data at hand, reversing thereby the Fisherian…
When a mathematical or computational model is used to analyse some system, it is usual that some parameters resp.\ functions or fields in the model are not known, and hence uncertain. These parametric quantities are then identified by…
Recent decades have seen an interest in prediction problems for which Bayesian methodology has been used ubiquitously. Sampling from or approximating the posterior predictive distribution in a Bayesian model allows one to make inferential…
In April 1925, Enrico Fermi was only 23 years old and he had graduated less than three years earlier. Despite his age, Fermi was invited at the University of Rome by Federigo Enriques to give several lectures on the recent advances in…
Classical statistics and Bayesian statistics refer to the frequentist and subjective theories of probability respectively. Von Mises and De Finetti, who authored those conceptualizations, provide interpretations of the probability that…
In almost every scientific field, an experiment involves collecting data and then analysing it. The analysis stage will often consist in trying to extract some physical parameter and estimating its uncertainty; this is known as Parameter…
Fermi helped establish a new framework for understanding matter, based on quantum theory. This framework refines and improves traditional atomism in two crucial respects. First, the elementary constituents of matter belong to a very small…
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…
The Bayesian Classification represents a supervised learning method as well as a statistical method for classification. Assumes an underlying probabilistic model and it allows us to capture uncertainty about the model in a principled way by…
This introduction to Bayesian statistics presents the main concepts as well as the principal reasons advocated in favour of a Bayesian modelling. We cover the various approaches to prior determination as well as the basis asymptotic…
The probability axioms by R. T. Cox can be regarded as the modern foundations of Bayesian inference, the idea of assigning degrees of belief to logical propositions in a manner consistent with Boolean logic. In this work it is shown that…
A central challenge in statistical inference is the presence of confounding variables that may distort observed associations between treatment and outcome. Conventional "causal" methods, grounded in assumptions such as ignorability, exclude…
Triggered by a recent interesting New Scientist article on the too frequent incorrect use of probabilistic evidence in courts, I introduce the basic concepts of probabilistic inference with a toy model, and discuss several important issues…
Quantum mechanics is a fundamentally probabilistic theory (at least so far as the empirical predictions are concerned). It follows that, if one wants to properly understand quantum mechanics, it is essential to clearly understand the…
Testing hypotheses is an issue of primary importance in the scientific research, as well as in many other human activities. Much clarification about it can be achieved if the process of learning from data is framed in a stochastic model of…
Bayesian methods are increasingly applied in these days in the theory and practice of statistics. Any Bayesian inference depends on a likelihood and a prior. Ideally one would like to elicit a prior from related sources of information or…
In the last months, due to the emergency of Covid-19, questions related to the fact of belonging or not to a particular class of individuals (`infected or not infected'), after being tagged as `positive' or `negative' by a test, have never…
This paper offers a comprehensive introduction to Bayesian inference, combining historical context, theoretical foundations, and core analytical examples. Beginning with Bayes' theorem and the philosophical distinctions between Bayesian and…