On Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 6:41:28 PM UTC+2, Ion Saliu wrote:
> On Monday, March 14, 2016 at 8:01:16 PM UTC-4, duncan smith wrote:
>
> "An impossible event with probability zero - you think that's absurd? The point is that even if you have mutually exclusive events, if you plug the correct probabilities into Bayes theorem you get the correct answer."
> Cardinal confusion: Event of probability 0 (impossibility) equated to ABSURDITY.
>
> Look at the absurdity of applying (attempt) Bayes' Theory to a mutually exclusive event (e.g. coin toss) -
>
> P('Heads' | 'Tails') = P('Heads') * P('Tails') / P('Heads') = (1/2 * 1/2) / 1/2 = 1/2 = 0
>
> The absurdity: 1/2 = 0 (a number greater than 0 is equal to 0). You can't simply say: "Make it 0 by definition". That's insane!
>
> That's why the Bayes Theorem does NOT -- repeat, does NOT -- apply to mutually exclusive events. "If 'Woman' is true, then the probability of 'Man' is 1/2 = 50%"!!! Bayes' Theorem correctly applies as in, for example: "If 'Man' is true, then the probability of 'Republican' is 55%... or something like that.
> "10% of the cast votes in the US election is a very large sample."
> Only in your crazy mind! The Pennsylvania case in 2012 was extreme. Philadelphia was the key, with a large number of Black voters who decided to vote in very large numbers. They voted Democrat 95%. In most cases, the predictions ('projections', as they say on TV) will not be made even if 60% of the votes were counted. In another extreme case, Florida 2000, wrong 'projections' were made after 90% of the votes were counted!
> Ion Saliu,
> Founder of: Probability Theory of Life, Randomness Politics
> http://saliu.com/dirty-election.html

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