coin toss with a twist

Here’s a cool illustration of how to use Bayesian analysis in the limit of very little data, when inferences are necessarily dominated by the prior. The question, via Tom Moertel, is: suppose I tell you that a coin always comes up heads, and you proceed to toss it and it does come up heads — how much more do you believe me now?

He also has the answer worked out in detail.

(h/t Doug Burke)

Leave a comment

Be advised that your thoughtful comment may not be submitted if too much time is spent. For a long comment, use an editor and copy the content into the box below. If unexpected submission denial happens, go back, copy the content, refresh the browser, paste the content, and then submit.

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>