It has crossed my mind that Bayesian thinking is especially susceptible to rationalization since, when applied to real world problems prior probabilities are usually very difficult to establish and very easy to rationalize. I am concerned that this may represent a sufficiently severe flaw in “Bayesianism” that it invalidates the entire concept.
I wonder how many readers and commenters here have changed truly deeply held and emotional (e.g. political) views as a result of a process of rational thinking. And if this has not happened, is it evidence of anything interesting?
If you adjust (the results of calculations) away from a conclusion ‘because you’re biased’, then the direction you adjust them in is the way you’re biased.
Well that works if you wait until you get an answer and then make adjustments. But I think most people (hopefully at least) manage to avoid that degree of bias. But there’s still the issue of how you determine the prior probabilities in the first place—after all it’s not like you can’t make a good estimate of what sort of numbers are likely to produce the result you want before you ever do any calculations at all.
It has crossed my mind that Bayesian thinking is especially susceptible to rationalization since, when applied to real world problems prior probabilities are usually very difficult to establish and very easy to rationalize. I am concerned that this may represent a sufficiently severe flaw in “Bayesianism” that it invalidates the entire concept.
I wonder how many readers and commenters here have changed truly deeply held and emotional (e.g. political) views as a result of a process of rational thinking. And if this has not happened, is it evidence of anything interesting?
If you adjust (the results of calculations) away from a conclusion ‘because you’re biased’, then the direction you adjust them in is the way you’re biased.
Well that works if you wait until you get an answer and then make adjustments. But I think most people (hopefully at least) manage to avoid that degree of bias. But there’s still the issue of how you determine the prior probabilities in the first place—after all it’s not like you can’t make a good estimate of what sort of numbers are likely to produce the result you want before you ever do any calculations at all.