[ExI] Bayes and psi

[Damien Broderick]

This might be of interest: a link to a plenary lecture Prof. Utts gave 
this summer at the 8th International Conference on Teaching Statistics.

http://icots8.org/cd/pdfs/plenaries/ICOTS8_PL2_UTTS.pdf

THE STRENGTH OF EVIDENCE VERSUS THE POWER OF BELIEF:
ARE WE ALL BAYESIANS?

Jessica Utts, Michelle Norris, Eric Suess, Wesley Johnson

Although statisticians have the job of making conclusions based on data, 
for many questions in science and society prior beliefs are strong and 
may take precedence over data when people make decisions. For other 
questions, there are experts who could shed light on the situation that 
may not be captured with available data. One of the appealing aspects of 
Bayesian statistics is that the methods allow prior beliefs and expert 
knowledge to be incorporated into the analysis along with the data. One 
domain where beliefs are almost sure to have a role is in the evaluation 
of scientific data for extrasensory perception (ESP). Experiments to 
test ESP often are binomial, and they have a clear null hypothesis, so 
they are an excellent way to illustrate hypothesis testing. 
Incorporating beliefs makes them an excellent example for the use of 
Bayesian analysis as well. In this paper, data from one type of ESP 
study are analyzed using both frequentist and Bayesian methods.