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The Bayesian Approach to Statistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

P. G. Moore
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Extract

For the last thirty years the teaching of statistics in universities in this country has been dominated by the relative frequency theory of probability, exemplified in Richard von Mises's book, Probability, Statistics and Truth. This statistical definition along the lines of the long run frequency concept of probability can be illustrated by asking what meaning is to be given to the statement ‘the probability of getting a head on a single toss of a penny is one half.’ The relative frequency adherent would answer something like ‘in a long sequence of repeated tosses, the proportion of outcomes that are heads is one half’. In the last ten years, however, an alternative approach has come to the fore, under the general title of the Bayesian Approach to Statistics. A Bayesian adherent would answer something along the lines that he would be ‘prepared to offer even money on getting a head on a single toss’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 92 , Issue 3 , December 1966 , pp. 326 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1966

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