Bayes for Everyone
Published on ACX
Scott “writes the best blog on the whole flippin’ internet” Alexander graciously published an essay I wrote on Astral Codex Ten, and I’m pretty danged happy with it!
It walks through how I’m Eganizing Bayesian reasoning (and “scout mindset” more generally) in my series of summer courses, titled “Believe it (or Not)”. Last year’s was about Bigfoot…
…and this year’s sequel is about sea monsters.
If you have a kid 8 and up who you’d like to have a better ability to suss out truth from fiction (even when experts disagree), you might enjoy it! We’ll be doing it live the week of June 23–27, 2025, but the recordings will be downloadable forever.
See the “Believe it (or Not)” courses, including “sea monsters”: https://www.scienceisweird.com/believe-it-or-not
If you like the post, check out the comments section there — Scott’s blog is famous for its vociferous debate culture, and I’m loving the critique. (I wasn’t sure that I would, actually — this has been a nice surprise.)
For those new to this blog, you might want to check out the “Cryptids” post from our pattern language:
And if you have any questions about the huge project in which we're embarked, feel free to ask.
I would amend that to say "Bayesian Networks for Everyone" since I'm quite persuaded that this is the best educational and pedagogical environment to make Bayes come alive. Have a look a my logic and probability puzzles for a sense of what I mean. I would very much like to discuss this approach with interested educators. Drop me a note or leave a message if interested.