CONDITIONAL BAYESIAN

PROBABILITY AN
APPLICATION
Dr. Laldinliana
Department of Commerce
Mizoram University

Who is Bayes?

Thomas Bayes (1701 7 April 1761) was an

English statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian
minister, known for having formulated a specific
case of the theorem that bears his name.
The probability of any event is the ratio between
the value at which an expectation depending on
the happening of the event ought to be computed,
and the value of the thing expected upon its
happening

Why Bayesian?
Bayes
theorem
finds
the
actual
probability of an event from the results
of your tests. For example, you can:
Correct for measurement errors. If you know
the real probabilities and the chance of a false
positive and false negative, you can correct for
measurement errors.
Relate the actual probability to the measured
test probability. Bayes theorem lets you relate
Pr(A|X), the chance that an event A happened
given the indicator X, and Pr(X|A), the chance the
indicator X happened given that event A occurred.

Example
Given mammogram test results and known
error rates, you can predict the actual chance
of having cancer.
An article describes a cancer testing scenario:
1% of women have breast cancer (and therefore
99% do not).
80% of mammograms detect breast cancer when
it is there (and therefore 20% miss it).
9.6% of mammograms detect breast cancer when
its not there (and therefore 90.4% correctly
return a negative result).

 Put in a table, the probabilities look

like this:

How do we read it?

1% of people have cancer
If you already have cancer, you are in
the first column. Theres an 80% chance
you will test positive. Theres a 20% chance
you will test negative.
If you dont have cancer, you are in the
second column. Theres a 9.6% chance you
will test positive, and a 90.4% chance you
will test negative.

How Accurate Is The Test?

Now suppose you get a positive test result. What
are the chances you have cancer? 80%? 99%? 1%?
Ok, we got a positive result. It means were
somewhere in the top row of our table it could
be a true positive or a false positive.
The chances of a true positive = chance you have
cancer * chance test caught it = 1% * 80% = .008
The chances of a false positive = chance you
dont have cancer * chance test caught it anyway
= 99% * 9.6% = 0.09504

 Probability = desired event / all possibilities

The chance of getting a real, positive result is .008. The
chance of getting any type of positive result is the
chance of a true positive plus the chance of a false
positive (.008 + 0.09504 = .10304).
So, our chance of cancer is .008/.10304 = 0.0776, or
about 7.8%.
Interesting a positive mammogram only means you
have a 7.8% chance of cancer, rather than 80% (the
supposed accuracy of the test). It might seem strange
at first but it makes sense: the test gives a false positive
10% of the time, so there will be a ton of false positives
in any given population.

Again, lets test our intuition by drawing a conclusion

from simply eyeballing the table.
If you take 100 people, only 1 person will have
cancer (1%), and theyre nearly guaranteed to test
positive (80% chance). Of the 99 remaining people,
about 10% will test positive, so well get roughly 10
false positives.
Considering all the positive tests, just 1 in 11 is
correct, so theres a 1/11 chance of having cancer
given a positive test. The real number is 7.8%
(closer to 1/13, computed above), but we found a
reasonable estimate without a calculator.

 We can turn the process above into

an equation, which is Bayes
Theorem. It lets you take the test
results and correct for the skew
introduced by false positives. You get
the real chance of having the event.
Heres the equation:

 Pr(A|X) = Chance of having cancer (A) given a

positive test (X). This is what we want to know: How
likely is it to have cancer with a positive result? In our
case it was 7.8%.
Pr(X|A) = Chance of a positive test (X) given that you
had cancer (A). This is the chance of a true positive,
80% in our case.
Pr(A) = Chance of having cancer (1%).
Pr(~A) = Chance of not having cancer (99%).
Pr(X|~A) = Chance of a positive test (X) given that
you didnt have cancer (~A). This is a false positive,
9.6% in our case.

 It all comes down to the chance of a true positive

result divided by the chance of any positive result.
We can simplify the equation to:

Pr(X) is a normalizing constant and helps scale our

equation. Without it, we might think that a positive test
result gives us an 80% chance of having cancer.
Pr(X) tells us the chance of getting any positive result,
whether its a real positive in the cancer population (1%)
or a false positive in the non-cancer population (99%).
Its a bit like a weighted average, and helps us compare
against the overall chance of a positive result.

Applying the theorem in testing a

hypothesis
Hypothesis:
Resurrection of a man named Jesus is
historic
Alternate Hypothesis:
Resurrection of a man named Jesus is
not historic

Historical criteria #1
Multiple, Independent Sources
Criterion

42 authors of antiquity within 150

years mentioned about Jesus, while
Tiberius Caesar-a, was mentioned by
10 authors within 150 years after his
death
Julius Caesar who spoke the famous
words I came, I saw, I conquer was
mentioned in only 5 works of antiquity

Historical criteria #2
Enemy Attestation Criterion
Rome officials, Syrian philosopher,
traditional jewish texts
Testimony of Saul of Tarsus

Historical criteria #3
Principle of Embarrassment Criterion
Women attestation
Disciples have no category of
understanding about the coming
death of Jesus

Historical criteria #4
Eyewitness Testimony Criterion
Matthew, John, Paul, Peter
Epistles of Jude and James

Historical criteria #5
Early Source Criterion
The 4 Gospel accounts were written within
35-65 years after the event
While,
Romes Caesar Augustus written in 6
works, except his funeral note, the earliest
work was Plutarchs, which was at least 90
years after event. Suetonius and Tacitus
after 100 years, Appian after 100-150
years, Dio Cassius after 175-200 years

Coming to the 4+1 Minimal

Facts
Jesus died by crucifixion
His disciples believed theyve seen
the resurrected Jesus
Persecutor of the followers of Jesus,
Paul believed he encountered the
resurrected Jesus
Skeptic James was converted
The empty tomb

Minimal facts #1
Jesus died by crucifixion

4 Gospels
Suetonius
Tacitus
Pliny The Younger
Thallus
Lucian of Samosata
Mara Bar Saparion
Josephus
Talmud

Minimal facts #2
His disciples believed theyve seen the
resurrected Jesus
A. They proclaimed it
Pauls epistles
Oral tradition
Gospels and works of early church fathers
Clement of Rome
Polycarp
Letter of Barnabas

B. They strongly believed it

Cowards turned martyrs for their beliefs

Martardom written in Lukes, Clement of
Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Dionysius of
Corinth, Tertullian and Origen
11
disciples,
Paul
and
James
suffered/martyred
Chance of martyrdom had he not
resurrected - 1:1039

Minimal facts #3
Paul believed he encountered the resurrected Jesus

Sauls conversion account in his own

works and Lukes Acts
Martyrdom recorded in Clement of
Rome (1 Clem.5:2-7), Polycarp (Phil.
9:2),
Tertullian
(Scorpiace
15),
Dionysius of Corinth (Ecclesiastical
History
2:25:8)
and
Origen
(Commentary on Genesis in EH 3:1)

Minimal facts #4
Skeptic James was converted

Brothers of Jesus did not believe

Jesus
They became followers after the
resurrection only
James, brother of Jesus became the
Bishop of Jerusalem, ordained by
Peter, became a martyr

Minimal facts #5
Empty tomb
Jerusalem factor
Enemy attestations
Testimonies of women

Probability of Jesus resurrection

Evidence shows
resurrection did not
happen (Scale 1-10)

Evidence shows
resurrection did happen
(Scale 1-10)

1/1
0

1/
9

1/
8

1/
7

1/
6

1/
5

1/
4

1/
3

2/
1

3/
1

4/
1

5/
1

6/1

7/
1

8/
1

9/
1

10/
1

.10

.
11

.
1
3

.
1
4

.
1
7

.
2
0

.
25

.
3
3

.
50

1 2

10

ORDER OF MAGNITUDE (M)

Jesus died by crucifixion M Value = 1

Disciples believed they encountered M Value = 3
Persecutor Paul converts
M Value = 3
Skeptic James converts
M Value = 3
Empty tomb M Value = 2

PAFTER =

PBEFORE X M/ PBEFORE X M + 100% - PBEFORE

WHERE, M = P(E|R)/P(E|R*)

= 96%
THEREFORE,
THE
OCCURRENCE
OF
JESUS
RESURRECTION IS MORE PROBABLE BY 46%(THAT IS
96%-50%) THAN NOT