[edna314]

How is explicating the prior an advantage? If the prior is arbitrary anyways you could also stick to your unknown prejudice. This shouldn't change any results and if it does you are in trouble anyways, no matter if you explicitly state your prejudice. I'm still suspecting that Bayesian statistics is just kind of a hack to make results look more convincing.

[denzil_correa]

> If the prior is arbitrary anyways you could also stick to your unknown prejudice

One way to think about a prior is to make your prejudices transparent rather than unknown.

[edna314]

But, this might be negative, because you can’t consciously tweak an unknown prejudice. But, you can tweak a prior until your results support your hypothesis. In that sense, Baysian statistics might be more transparent, but less honest.

[denzil_correa]

Bayesian approaches are more transparent regardless of them being "honest" or not.

[edna314]

True, but the question is if transparency is desirable. I would say it is dangerous for three reasons. First, you might be tempted to tweak your prior until your posterior confirms your hypothesis. Second, using Bayesian reasoning, you make it seem that the first procedure is justified. And third, if everyone does the tweaking for example within in a scientific community, nobody would complain, since everyone automatically would confirm their hypothesis with higher posterior probability.

[srean]

I might be tempted to walk to dangerous places, lets avoid walking, I would say it is dangerous because it can be abused.

[edna314]

I didn't say that you should avoid Bayesian statistics.