“Silas, there is no Bayesian ‘revival’ in science. There is one amongst people who wish to reduce science to a mechanical procedure.” – Gene Callahan
Am I the only one who finds this extremely unlikely? So far as I know, Bayesian methods have become massively more popular in science over the last 50 years. (Count JSTOR hits for the word ‘Bayesian,’ for example, and watch the numbers shoot up over time!)
Half of those hits are in the social sciences. I suspect that is economists defining the rational agents they study as bayesian, but that is rather different from the economists being bayesian themselves! The other half are in math & staticstics is probably that bayesian statisticians are becoming more common, which you might count as science (and 10% are in science proper).
Anyhow, it’s clear from the context (I’d have thought from the quote) that he just means that the vast majority of scientists are not interested in defining science precisely.
It might well have been clear from the quote itself, but not to me—I just read the quote as saying Bayesian thinking and Bayesian methods haven’t become more popular in science, which doesn’t mesh with my intuition/experience.
Am I the only one who finds this extremely unlikely? So far as I know, Bayesian methods have become massively more popular in science over the last 50 years. (Count JSTOR hits for the word ‘Bayesian,’ for example, and watch the numbers shoot up over time!)
Half of those hits are in the social sciences. I suspect that is economists defining the rational agents they study as bayesian, but that is rather different from the economists being bayesian themselves! The other half are in math & staticstics is probably that bayesian statisticians are becoming more common, which you might count as science (and 10% are in science proper).
Anyhow, it’s clear from the context (I’d have thought from the quote) that he just means that the vast majority of scientists are not interested in defining science precisely.
It might well have been clear from the quote itself, but not to me—I just read the quote as saying Bayesian thinking and Bayesian methods haven’t become more popular in science, which doesn’t mesh with my intuition/experience.