If you've read Science 2.0 for any length of time, you've seen Bayes' Theorem - mostly in sports. We use it to predict who will win the baseball playoffs, for example.
Bayes’s theorem, named after 18th-century Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes, has become an invaluable tool for scientists.
At its core, Bayes’s theorem depends upon an ingenious turnabout: If you want to assess the strength of your hypothesis given the evidence, you must also assess the strength of the evidence given your hypothesis. In the face of uncertainty, a Bayesian asks three questions: How confident am I in the truth of my initial belief? On the assumption that my original belief is true, how confident am I that the new evidence is accurate? And whether or not my original belief is true, how confident am I that the new evidence is accurate?
