What is Bayesian statistics?

2016 ◽  
Vol 100 (548) ◽  
pp. 247-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osvaldo Marrero

Bayesian statistics is included in few elementary statistics courses, and many mathematicians have heard of it, perhaps through collateral readings from popular literature or [1], selected as an Editor's Choice in the New York Times Book Review. ‘Bayesian statistics’ provides for a way to incorporate prior beliefs, experience, or information into the analysis of data. Bayesian thinking is natural, and that is an advantage. For example, on a summer morning, if we see dark rain clouds up in the sky, we leave home for work with an umbrella because prior experience tells us that doing so is beneficial. In general, the idea is simple; schematically, it looks like this:(prior belief) + (data: new information) ⇒ (posterior belief).Thus, we begin with a prior belief that we allow to be modified or informed by new data to produce a posterior belief, which then becomes our new prior, and this process is never-ending. We are always willing to update our beliefs according to new information.

1979 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-386
Author(s):  
Roland V. Layton

Kurt Ludecke's I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Purge, published in 1937, was one of the first accounts of Hitler by a person claiming to have been closely associated with the highest figures of the Nazi Party, and as such it was widely reviewed. The New York Times gave the memoir both a column in its daily “Books of the Times” and a full page in the Sunday book review section. Other leading publications treated the book with similar interest. The reviews ranged from enthusiastic (the New York Times reviewer, Email Lengyel, characterized the book as “a historic document” and “indispensable”) to dubious (the Saturday Review of Literature complained that “one can't believe him”).


1994 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 787-799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Haugland

The book industry historically has been characterized as caught between two seemingly conflicting goals: to contribute to the cultural life of the society and to make a profit. As the most influential medium for information about books, the text of the New York Times Book Review reflects that conflict and marks the boundary between books as culture and books as commerce in a way that maintains an artificial distinction between high and low culture.


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