Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Bayes' Theorem

I ran across something that I wanted to share, some time ago. I figured I'd read it and write a handy little summary if I could, but I'm distracted by the need to commute and so I don't have the time to attempt to reacquaint myself with probability statistics. I do nevertheless find the field interesting and it has useful connections with the field I'm going into, so it'll be valuable to dust off my STAT book one of these days.

Bayes' Theorem is explained somewhat here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

It is a mathematical method for assessing the likelihood of one event based on the probability of a related phenomenon. As it turns out, a professor once wrote an analysis of the statistical likelihood of the Resurrection based on the prevalence of eyewitness evidence. As of this post, this link to it was still active: http://www.thewarfareismental.net/b/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/depoe-bayesian-analysis-resurrection.pdf

I'll leave it at that, because I can't assess it very much nor give the holistic explanation I like to do, without further review of statistics. My thought process is logical but not mathematical. My visual-abstract reasoning needs to put in more effort to convert the numerical representations into "brain language." In essence, I'm translating mathematics into words and images in the process of learning it. But I may one day return and give more capable explanation of this interesting topic.

But suffice it to say: based on the number of direct eye witnesses to the event, as demonstrated by the recorded history, we can be perfectly statistically persuaded that the Resurrection took place. With the strength of mathematical analysis behind our conviction.

~ Rak Chazak

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