Hi,
I came across a statement in a review of a research field, where they were determining an unknown parameter using Bayesian statistics. The reviewer said that using Bayes statistics to estimate the parameter is uncontroversial, but many of the papers dealing with this estimation are weak because of their choice of the prior probability.
So, my questions would be: is there a more or less objective way of chosing the priors? Are the results sensitive to this choice (I guess they are) and if that is the case how can any statement be made about the real world as opposed to a statement about the beliefs of the author?
I am a complete beginner with the Bayesian methods, so hopefully these are well known and easily answereable questions.
regards
rogojel
I came across a statement in a review of a research field, where they were determining an unknown parameter using Bayesian statistics. The reviewer said that using Bayes statistics to estimate the parameter is uncontroversial, but many of the papers dealing with this estimation are weak because of their choice of the prior probability.
So, my questions would be: is there a more or less objective way of chosing the priors? Are the results sensitive to this choice (I guess they are) and if that is the case how can any statement be made about the real world as opposed to a statement about the beliefs of the author?
I am a complete beginner with the Bayesian methods, so hopefully these are well known and easily answereable questions.
regards
rogojel