Encyclopedia > Statistical probability

  Article Content

Statistical probability

Among statisticians, there are three distinct interpretations of probability:
  1. Due to the phenomenon known as Statistical Regularity, relative frequency is universally accepted as a legitimate interpretation of probability. This interpretation is most clearly demonstrated with Games of Chance. Consisistency with this interpretation has provoked some conceptual complexities in Statistical Inference which introductory courses attempt to convey to students. Richard von Mises[?] is one of the better known advocates of this point of view.
  2. Logical probability is an attempt to extend formal logic with truth values intermediate to the conventional end points of false (zero probability) and true (unit probability). This interpretation has been favored by economists like John Maynard Keynes, Frank Plumpton Ramsey, and B. O. Koopman, physicists such as Edwin Thompson Jaynes and Richard T. Cox. In essence, they advocated use of the concept of expected rational utility to develop an operational definition of the probability of any proposition.
  3. Personal Probability was championed by Leonard J. Savage[?] and Bruno de Finetti as a way of giving meaning to non-repeatable propositions and subjective evaluations of their probability.

Both logical probability and "personal" (or subjective) probability are instances of Bayesianism.

An eclectic school has developed which attempts to defuse the debate by focusing on the axioms of mathematical probability as the criterion as to whether an interpretation is valid and/or valuable.

External links



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Jordanes

... Contents Jordanes Jordanes or Jordanis was a 6th century historian. He was an Ostrogoth and was a notary of Gothic kings in Italy. At the time of Justinian, he was a ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 48.3 ms