Concept
Thomas Bayes
Related concepts (12)
Bayesian statistics
Bayesian statistics (ˈbeɪziən or ˈbeɪʒən ) is a theory in the field of statistics based on the Bayesian interpretation of probability where probability expresses a degree of belief in an event. The degree of belief may be based on prior knowledge about the event, such as the results of previous experiments, or on personal beliefs about the event. This differs from a number of other interpretations of probability, such as the frequentist interpretation that views probability as the limit of the relative frequency of an event after many trials.
Bayesian epistemology
Bayesian epistemology is a formal approach to various topics in epistemology that has its roots in Thomas Bayes' work in the field of probability theory. One advantage of its formal method in contrast to traditional epistemology is that its concepts and theorems can be defined with a high degree of precision. It is based on the idea that beliefs can be interpreted as subjective probabilities. As such, they are subject to the laws of probability theory, which act as the norms of rationality.
An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances
An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances is a work on the mathematical theory of probability by Thomas Bayes, published in 1763, two years after its author's death, and containing multiple amendments and additions due to his friend Richard Price. The title comes from the contemporary use of the phrase "doctrine of chances" to mean the theory of probability, which had been introduced via the title of a book by Abraham de Moivre.
Beta distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the beta distribution is a family of continuous probability distributions defined on the interval [0, 1] or (0, 1) in terms of two positive parameters, denoted by alpha (α) and beta (β), that appear as exponents of the variable and its complement to 1, respectively, and control the shape of the distribution. The beta distribution has been applied to model the behavior of random variables limited to intervals of finite length in a wide variety of disciplines.
Probability interpretations
The word probability has been used in a variety of ways since it was first applied to the mathematical study of games of chance. Does probability measure the real, physical, tendency of something to occur, or is it a measure of how strongly one believes it will occur, or does it draw on both these elements? In answering such questions, mathematicians interpret the probability values of probability theory. There are two broad categories of probability interpretations which can be called "physical" and "evidential" probabilities.
Bayesian inference
Bayesian inference (ˈbeɪziən or ˈbeɪʒən ) is a method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available. Bayesian inference is an important technique in statistics, and especially in mathematical statistics. Bayesian updating is particularly important in the dynamic analysis of a sequence of data. Bayesian inference has found application in a wide range of activities, including science, engineering, philosophy, medicine, sport, and law.
The Doctrine of Chances
The Doctrine of Chances was the first textbook on probability theory, written by 18th-century French mathematician Abraham de Moivre and first published in 1718. De Moivre wrote in English because he resided in England at the time, having fled France to escape the persecution of Huguenots. The book's title came to be synonymous with probability theory, and accordingly the phrase was used in Thomas Bayes' famous posthumous paper An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances, wherein a version of Bayes' theorem was first introduced.
Inverse probability
In probability theory, inverse probability is an obsolete term for the probability distribution of an unobserved variable. Today, the problem of determining an unobserved variable (by whatever method) is called inferential statistics, the method of inverse probability (assigning a probability distribution to an unobserved variable) is called Bayesian probability, the "distribution" of data given the unobserved variable is rather the likelihood function (which is not a probability distribution), and the distribution of an unobserved variable, given both data and a prior distribution, is the posterior distribution.
Bayes' theorem
In probability theory and statistics, Bayes' theorem (beɪz or beɪzɪz ; alternatively Bayes' law or Bayes' rule), and occasionally Bayes's theorem, named after Thomas Bayes, describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. For example, if the risk of developing health problems is known to increase with age, Bayes' theorem allows the risk to an individual of a known age to be assessed more accurately by conditioning it relative to their age, rather than simply assuming that the individual is typical of the population as a whole.
Conditional probability
In probability theory, conditional probability is a measure of the probability of an event occurring, given that another event (by assumption, presumption, assertion or evidence) has already occurred. This particular method relies on event B occurring with some sort of relationship with another event A. In this event, the event B can be analyzed by a conditional probability with respect to A. If the event of interest is A and the event B is known or assumed to have occurred, "the conditional probability of A given B", or "the probability of A under the condition B", is usually written as P(AB) or occasionally P_B(A).