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Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

greenteapress.com

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Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#51

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

boostedsignal wrote: post #38
wodenokoto wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write that the frequentist doesn't answer the question, but it does. It answers P(H') = (H/H+T)^H' You also write that the frequentist solution fails to give an error estimate, yet you don't show that the Bayesian solution does give one. If the goal of the article is to show that Bayesian is more correct than frequentist then it leaves the reader unconvinced. If the goal is to show 3 ways of finding a probability…

> You write that the frequentist doesn't answer the question, but it does. It answers: P(H') = (H/H+T)^H' The question was asking for P(H' | H, T), not P(H'). > You also write that the frequentist solution fails to give an error estimate, yet you don't show that the Bayesian solution does give one. Because there is no error? In the proof I assume P(p) is known and then after that every step follows from a law of prob…

> The only caveat is that we need to know P(p) to be able to perform the procedure

I think this is a very confusing way to put it. P(p) is not an objective value that you can know or not know, it is rather a model of our subjective knowledge, and therefore it doesn't really make sense to say "the caveat is that we need to know what our knowledge is" ... yeah, we do, but that is always the case by definition, so pointless to bring up.

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#52

Post by WoodenChair »

jabretti wrote: post #37
epalmer wrote: post #13

My youngest has Allen Downey as a professor this year. She says he is crazy. And she means this in the best way possible. His productivity is prolific having written Think Java in 13 days. He memorized pictures and bios of all 90 students in the first year class at Olin College of Engineering. Edit typo

>He memorized pictures and bios of all 90 students in the first year class at Olin College of Engineering. It's impressive not so much that he did that, but that he bothered to try. Most lecturers (myself included) will try very hard not to learn anything about their students because they consider actually dealing with undergrads (particularly first-years!) on an individual level is beneath them.

Sad to know that attitude pervades higher ed. Another reason students are well served choosing a teaching college for undergraduate instead of a research university.

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#53

Post by TFortunato »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #20

“I broke this rule because I developed some of the code while I was a Visiting Scientist at Google, so I followed the Google style guide, which deviates from PEP 8 in a few places. Once I got used to Google style, I found that I liked it. And at this point, it would be too much trouble to change.” Why would you write a book that targets the Python community and ignore PEP8 styling, inconveniencing an entire community…

Others have already made the point about PEP8 being a guideline, so I just wanted to also point out that not all style guides would agress with you on Bayes'/'s theorem. Case in point, the APA style guide: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/06/forming-possessive...

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#54

Post by badminton1 »

bhattisatish wrote: post #46
badminton1 wrote: post #2

Thanks for posting this. The Jupyter notebooks (and the fact Github has built-in support for them) really help illustrating the concepts. The book I've used so far to study is "Probability and Statistics: The Science of Uncertainty", by Michael J. Evans and Jeffrey S. Rosenthal. This book is not being published anymore and is free in PDF form.

The book you mentioned is available at http://www.utstat.toronto.edu/mikevans/jeffrosenthal/

May also want to take a look at: "Introduction to Statistics and Probability using R"

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/IPSUR/vignettes/IPSU...

R has builtin functions for most of your needs. You can get a lot done with very few code.

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#55

Post by xelxebar »

_0w8t wrote: post #19

For me the best so far book on Bayesian probability was "Probability Theory: The Logic of Science: Principles and Elementary Applications" by E. T. Jaynes. The book starts from the deduction of Bayesian theorem from the first principles of logic and shows its applications to a wide range of topics. There is thorough discussion of various "paradoxes" and the author sharply criticizes the frequentist statistics. In add…

I came here to recommend this book too! It's a text that definitely allows one to go as deep as they wish very fleshed out references, a good appendix, and lots of comments on directions that can be explored more deeply.

It's a book I'm happy to have in dead tree form on my shelf.

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#56

Post by folksinger »

clircle wrote: post #44
folksinger wrote: post #18

Let's take a recent election as an example: A Bayesian pollster began with a certain set of prior probabilities. That the college educated were more likely to vote in previous elections, for example, informed the sample population, because it wouldn't make much sense to ask the opinions of those who would stay home. Thus, based on priors that were updated with new empirical data, a new set of probabilities emerged, t…

I suppose you aren't talking about Andrew Gelman... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/20/upshot/the-er...

You mean the same Andrew Gelman who did not predict the election of Trump and took the time to reflect on the issues with polling methodology?

http://andrewgelman.com/2016/12/08/19-things-learned-2016-el...

I'll have to write another poem about pithy rebuttals that cherry-pick a counter-narrative!

Now, what rhymes with anecdotal...

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#57

Post by epalmer »

jabretti wrote: post #37
epalmer wrote: post #13

My youngest has Allen Downey as a professor this year. She says he is crazy. And she means this in the best way possible. His productivity is prolific having written Think Java in 13 days. He memorized pictures and bios of all 90 students in the first year class at Olin College of Engineering. Edit typo

>He memorized pictures and bios of all 90 students in the first year class at Olin College of Engineering. It's impressive not so much that he did that, but that he bothered to try. Most lecturers (myself included) will try very hard not to learn anything about their students because they consider actually dealing with undergrads (particularly first-years!) on an individual level is beneath them.

At Olin everyone is an undergraduate. Olin is about reinventing engineering education. They consider faculty as very important to the process but they are guides not instructors. The students most of the time have to seek information and approaches out.

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#58

Post by epalmer »

gwern wrote: post #36
epalmer wrote: post #13

My youngest has Allen Downey as a professor this year. She says he is crazy. And she means this in the best way possible. His productivity is prolific having written Think Java in 13 days. He memorized pictures and bios of all 90 students in the first year class at Olin College of Engineering. Edit typo

> He memorized pictures and bios of all 90 students in the first year class at Olin College of Engineering. Do you know if he was using spaced repetition to do that? I know some teachers have tried that to speed up learning their students.

I don't know. But he is so deep and broad in his knowledge that he may have a memory that exceeds mere mortal memory. This is a book he is working on now http://greenteapress.com/thinkos/index.html

From the description:

> This book is intended for a different audience, and it has different goals. I developed it for a class at Olin College called Software Systems.

> Most students taking this class learned to program in Python, so one of the goals is to help them learn C. For that part of the class, I use Griffiths and Griffiths, Head First C, from O'Reilly Media. This book is meant to complement that one.

> Few of my students will ever write an operating system, but many of them will write low-level applications in C, and some of them will work on embedded systems. My class includes material from operating systems, networks, databases, and embedded systems, but it emphasizes the topics programmers need to know.

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#59

Post by sctb »

bubblesocks wrote: post #25
bubblesocks wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you were down-voted. This is a valid point and as a college professor and author, I'm sure Downey would appreciate any feedback that would make his book better.

It looks like someone is overly sensitive to criticism. Instead of being a coward and voting valid comments down without comment, why don't you add to the discussion by stating why you think the comment was wrong/invalid/etc., thus enlightening the rest of us with your superiority?

Would you mind sticking to civil and substantive comments, and also resist complaining about voting? The guidelines are pretty clear.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple (2012)

#60

Post by leephillips »

franklin_cobb wrote: post #50
leephillips wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the PEP8 style guide: "Many projects have their own coding style guidelines. In the event of any conflicts, such project-specific guides take precedence for that project." and "A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds". And, throughout, PEP8 makes it clear that it is a set of recommendations, and that if a project or community already has an established style, it need not be changed.

Why are you arguing against PEP8? As you mentioned in your final sentence, the Python community DOES have an established standard. It is called PEP8. The parent has made a valid point. Why would you criticize or trash his "karma" for stating it?

You say I'm arguing against PEP8 by quoting PEP8? That's hard to understand. Whose karma am I "trashing", and how? I certainly didn't downvote him, if that's what you mean.
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