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MatthewW comments on Bayesian analysis under threat in British courts - Less Wrong
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Comments (23)
I have some sympathy for the judge here, even as I wince. If in real life juries don't understand Bayes and the actual effect of its use in court is to be grossly misused or make wild guesses sound formal and authoritative, then in the end you can't have Bayes's Theorem used formally in courts.
That isn't what was going on in this case. The expert wasn't presenting statistics to the jury (apparently that's already forbidden).
The good news from this case (well, it's news to me) is that the UK forensic science service both understands the statistics and has sensible written procedures for using them, which some of the examiners follow. But they then have to turn the likelihood ratio into a rather unhelpful form of words like 'moderately strong scientific support' (not to be confused with 'moderate scientific support', which is weaker), because bringing the likelihood ratios into court is forbidden.
(Bayes' Theorem itself doesn't really come into this case.)