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If you are writing a book on Bayesian statistics
This post is somewhat marginal to R in that there are several statistical systems that could be used to tackle the problem. Bayesian statistics is one of those topics that I would like to understand better, much better, in fact. Unfortunately, I struggle to get the time to attend courses on the topic between running […]
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No one would ever conceive
I believe that no one who is familiar, either with mathematical advances in other fields, or with the range of special biological conditions to be considered, would ever conceive that everything could be summed up in a single mathematical formula, however complex. R.A. Fisher (1932) quoted in the preface to Foundations of Mathematical Genetics by […]
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On “true” models
Before starting the description of the probability distributions, we want to impose on the reader the essential feature that a model is an interpretation of a real phenomenon that fits its characteristics to some degree of approximation rather than an explanation that would require the model to be “true”. In short, there is no such […]
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Preamble to the instructions on how to wind a watch
Think of this: when they present you with a watch, they are gifting you with a tiny flowering hell, a wreath of roses, a dungeon of air. They aren’t simply wishing the watch on you, and many more, and we hope it will last you, it’s a good grand, Swiss, seventeen rubies; they aren’t just […]