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Category Archives: Bayesian Reasoning
Is Riggs v. Palmer a “hard case”?
For many legal scholars, the paradigm or textbook example of a “hard case” in law is Riggs v. Palmer, the infamous “murdering heir” case decided in 1889 by the New York Court of Appeals. The facts of this legendary case would make tabloid and … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Law, Probability
Tagged Hard Cases, Prediction Theory of Law, Riggs v. Palmer
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A critique of “Naked Statistics” (Or, where is Rev. Bayes?)
We finally got around to reading Charles Wheelan’s 250+ page defense of frequentist methods in his 2013 book “Naked Statistics.” (Curiously, his book was published a year after Nate Silver best-selling tome “The Signal and the Noise,” a book that … Continue reading
Broken y-axis controversy
Stunning chart, but… The @BW chart, & my e.g., w/o the broken axis. businessweek.com/articles/2014-… cc @junkcharts #charts http://t.co/Fr51K9Ky8c— Abhinav Agarwal (@AbhinavWork) December 12, 2014 Read more about this little statistical dust-up here (via Justin Fox). Addendum (31 Dec. 2014): Here is another take on … Continue reading
“Visualizing Probabilistic Proof”
Our latest theoretical paper (“Visualizing Probabilistic Proof” — click on the image above to see our abstract) has just been published in volume 7 of the Wash U Jurisprudence Review, along with an interesting Note by Krista C. McCormack titled “Ethos, Pathos, and … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Law, Paradoxes
Tagged Blue Bus Problem, Proof Paradoxes
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Mixed strategies
So which of these four ghost strategies would you expect to have the highest kill rate? Hat tip to jackmcxp for sharing this tidbit with us via Imgur.
Testing our scientific tests
We recently reviewed the abstract and slides of Deborah Mayo’s 3 Dec. 2014 presentation at Rutgers University. Her excellent talk was titled “Probing with severity: beyond Bayesian probabilism and frequentist performance.” (Both the abstract and the slides of her lecture … Continue reading
Ban state-run monopolies, not Uber
*The sign should read “Welcome to Nevada … Except Uber.” Why? Read this report: The only State that allows prostitution just banned Uber. By the way, isn’t Nevada’s decision to ban Uber an unlawful restriction of interstate commerce under the Dormant Commerce … Continue reading
Toys and gender
My wife and I are hoping our daughter Adys Ann (left) will love to play with a creative, science-inspired toy like Lego’s particle accelerator (see film clip above) when she is a little older. In any case, here’s another reason why … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Games, Questions Rarely Asked
Tagged Adys Ann Guerra, LEGO, Particle Accelerator, Toys
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The reference class problem strikes again?
A public interest group based in Las Vegas — the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage — recently filed a petition alleging the non-random assignment of judges in a subset of same-sex marriage cases decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals … Continue reading
prior probability 