Reddit mentions of Philosophical Theories of Probability (Philosophical Issues in Science)

> Finally, I am going to ask you one last time to stop using the term "prior" incorrectly. I understand what you are saying but what you are referring to IS NOT A PRIOR. At least not in the way Bayesian statisticians have defined the prior for the last 50 years.

It's amazing to me that someone with a background in statistics can be so oblivious to the history and the conceptual foundations of probability theory. What I have described is the standard Bayesian interpretation of probability and the standard use of prior probability within that tradition. Have you actually ever read Bayes's original paper? Are you familiar with Bayesians such as Bruno de Finetti, E. T. Jaynes, Richard Jeffreys? It's pretty incredible to believe that stastistics departments can award a BSc in statistics to someone who is not even familiar with one of the standard interpretations of probability theory. I assume you are all indoctrinated in the frequentist interpretation and then you get some Bayesian ideas sprinkled on top. I strongly recommend that you read this book by Donald Gillies. It's a very good introduction to various approaches to the conceptual foundations of probability, including the subjective Bayesian approach. Since I'm partial to an objective Bayesian interpretation, however, I'd also recommend this book by Jon Williamson.

> I think your problem is that you are so sure that you are right you become sure that others who disagree with you must simply not understand how to think. SK doesn't understand how corroboration works? Since I do not share the level of certainty that you have in Adnan's guilt I must be guilty of not understanding basic probabilistic reasoning? Do you ever consider that someone could disagree with you without having some inability to reason? Do you concede that you have your own biases and that you are unable to consider the case without them? I do. I admit that my background, being a minority, seeing police injustice, growing up where I grew up, etc., all shape my world view. I try not to let it affect things but I am not perfect.

Biases affect us all. Me, you, and everyone else. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to look at the evidence objectively in a case like this. I happen to share your views about the cops in general (although I don't think that the detectives handled this case badly) and I think the prosecutors crossed a lot of ethical lines in this trial, but I still believe the evidence clearly shows that Adnan is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I don't fault people for having a different treshold of reasonable doubt than me. What really boggles my mind here is the people who actively believe Adnan is innocent, who actively believe Jay did it, or who actively believe a random serial killer killed Hae. I really don't think those people are looking at the evidence dispassionately. But if you look at the evidence and you say "He probably did it but I don't feel his guilt has been proven beyond reasonable doubt", I simply assume that we have different conceptions of what doubts are reasonable. I also think it's hard to know what evidence was presented at trial from a 12-hour podcast. Even Deirdre Enright says that the show only presented about 1/8 of the material pertaining to this case.