Re:Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?
by jasonwatkinspdx on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @01:15PM
(#10844881)
> if you start with any prior, will enough additional pieces of evidence always let you converge on the truth?
That's the general trend: pooling data tends to make priors converge. However, converging priors isn't quite the same thing as everyone converging on the truth.
Statistical expressions themselves are an incomplete explanation, we routinely use assumptions about the direction of causality that aren't captured in them. See Judea Pearl's "Why I am only half Bayesian" paper for a discussion as well as an intro to how his framework approaches such independence assumptions.
That's the general trend: pooling data tends to make priors converge. However, converging priors isn't quite the same thing as everyone converging on the truth.
Statistical expressions themselves are an incomplete explanation, we routinely use assumptions about the direction of causality that aren't captured in them. See Judea Pearl's "Why I am only half Bayesian" paper for a discussion as well as an intro to how his framework approaches such independence assumptions.