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Tag Archives: Reference Class Problem
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
Was Holmes a Bayesian?
Not that Holmes. This one. In our previous blog post (11/14/14), we promised to explain why our defense of Bayesian methods is relevant to law. After all, how is probability theory generally or any of the foregoing specifically — i.e. Hájek’s analysis … Continue reading
A critique of Hájek’s critique of “radical subjectivism”
Alan Hájek delivers a devastating blow against frequentism and other theories of probability in his influential 2007 paper “The reference class problem is your problem too.” In brief, when a hypothesis H or proposition P can be classified in various … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Probability
Tagged Alan Hajek, Reference Class Problem, Theory
2 Comments
A recent example of the reference-class problem
As Zeynep Tufekci explains in this excellent essay, the now-infamous Catcalling Video was not based on a random sample of New York City neighborhoods. Here is the actual and non-random breakdown of time spent in each neighborhood: In other words, the methodology of the … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Culture, Logical Fallacies, Probability
Tagged Biased Samples, Catcalling Video, Reference Class Problem
1 Comment
prior probability 