You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

JonathanLivengood comments on XKCD - Frequentist vs. Bayesians - Less Wrong Discussion

18 Post author: brilee 09 November 2012 05:25AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (89)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 November 2012 05:09:08PM 16 points [-]

Two subtleties here:

1) The neutrino detector is evidence that the Sun has exploded. It's showing an observation which is 36^H^H 35 times more likely to appear if the Sun has exploded than if it hasn't (likelihood ratio of 35:1). The Bayesian just doesn't think that's strong enough evidence to overcome the prior odds, i.e., after multiplying the prior odds by 35 they still aren't very high.

2) If the Sun has exploded, the Bayesian doesn't lose very much from paying off this bet.

Comment author: JonathanLivengood 09 November 2012 06:58:49PM 11 points [-]

I just want to know why he's only betting $50.

Comment author: mwengler 10 November 2012 12:00:11AM 12 points [-]

Because the stupider the prediction is that somebody is making, the harder it is to get them to put their money where their mouth is. The Bayesian is hoping that $50 is a price the other guy is willing to pay to signal his affiliation with the other non-Bayesians.

Comment author: beoShaffer 10 November 2012 12:04:56AM 5 points [-]

Because its funnier that way.