The charge was not that the idea is not useful, nor that it is not true, either of which might be a mark against it. But “non-Bayesian”? I can’t unpack that accusation in a way that makes it seem like a good thing to be concerned about. Even putting aside that I don’t much care for Bayesian decision-making (for humans), it sounds like it’s in the same family as a charge of “non-Christian”.
One analogy: non-mathematical, not formalized, not written in English, and attempts to translate generally fail.
See [*] for a critique of null hypothesis and related techniques from a Bayesian perspective. To cite:
My work in power analysis led be to realize that the nil hypothesis is always false. [...] If it is false, even to a tiny degree, it must be the case that a large enough sample will produce a significant result and lead to its rejection. So if the null hypothesis is always false, what’s the big deal about rejecting it?
[*] J. Cohen (1994). `The Earth Is Round (p < .05)’. American Psychologist 49(12):997-1003. [pdf].
The charge was not that the idea is not useful, nor that it is not true, either of which might be a mark against it. But “non-Bayesian”? I can’t unpack that accusation in a way that makes it seem like a good thing to be concerned about. Even putting aside that I don’t much care for Bayesian decision-making (for humans), it sounds like it’s in the same family as a charge of “non-Christian”.
One analogy: non-mathematical, not formalized, not written in English, and attempts to translate generally fail.
See [*] for a critique of null hypothesis and related techniques from a Bayesian perspective. To cite:
[*] J. Cohen (1994). `The Earth Is Round (p < .05)’. American Psychologist 49(12):997-1003. [pdf].
Being non-Bayesian is one particular type of being untrue.
Now, what does this mean? Sounds horribly untrue.