Evidence and Probability Data

Abstract

This chapter discusses evidence and probability data with particular attention on Bayesian estimation. The Protestant ethic slowed probability developments in the United States, but the idea of quantification continued apace in England and on the Continent. In particular, Thomas Bayes invented a simple but profound mathematical means to connect outcomes with causes with conditional probabilities and Bayesian estimation. The chapter explains conditional probabilities and Bayesian logic, giving several examples, including incidence of accurate cancer diagnosis with inexact diagnostics. The chapter also introduces Bayes’s magnum opus An Essay Toward Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances and gives his example of rolling billiard balls on a billiard table to show Bayes’s theorem.