It may be useful shorthand to say “X is good”, but when we forget the specific boundaries of that statement and only remember the shorthand, it becomes a liability. When we decide that the statement “Bayes’ Theorem is valid, true, and useful in updating probabilities” collapses into “Bayes’ Theorem is good,” we invite the abuse of Bayes’ Theorem.
So I wouldn’t say it’s always a bad thing, but I’d say it introduces unnecessary ambiguity and contributes to sub-optimal moral reasoning.
That is a good question for a statistician, and I am not a statistician.
One thing that leaps to mind, however, is two-boxing on Newcomb’s Problem using assumptions about the prior probability of box B containing $1,000,000. Some new work using math that I don’t begin to understand suggests that either response to Newcomb’s problem is defensible using Bayesian nets.
There could be more trivial cases, too, where a person inputs unreasonable prior probabilities and uses cargo-cult statistics to support some assertion.
Also, it’s struck me that a frequentist statistician might call most Bayesian uses of the theorem “abuses.”
I’m not sure those are really good examples, but I hope they’re satisfying.
It may be useful shorthand to say “X is good”, but when we forget the specific boundaries of that statement and only remember the shorthand, it becomes a liability. When we decide that the statement “Bayes’ Theorem is valid, true, and useful in updating probabilities” collapses into “Bayes’ Theorem is good,” we invite the abuse of Bayes’ Theorem.
So I wouldn’t say it’s always a bad thing, but I’d say it introduces unnecessary ambiguity and contributes to sub-optimal moral reasoning.
Do you have some good examples of abuse of Bayes’ theorem?
That is a good question for a statistician, and I am not a statistician.
One thing that leaps to mind, however, is two-boxing on Newcomb’s Problem using assumptions about the prior probability of box B containing $1,000,000. Some new work using math that I don’t begin to understand suggests that either response to Newcomb’s problem is defensible using Bayesian nets.
There could be more trivial cases, too, where a person inputs unreasonable prior probabilities and uses cargo-cult statistics to support some assertion.
Also, it’s struck me that a frequentist statistician might call most Bayesian uses of the theorem “abuses.”
I’m not sure those are really good examples, but I hope they’re satisfying.