出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』「2015/12/23 01:50:11」(JST)
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In probability theory and statistics, Bayes' theorem (alternatively Bayes' law or Bayes' rule) describes the probability of an event, based on conditions that might be related to the event. For example, suppose one is interested in whether a woman has cancer, and that she is 65. If cancer is related to age, information about her age can be used to more accurately assess the probability of her having cancer using Bayes' Theorem.
When applied, the probabilities involved in Bayes' theorem may have different probability interpretations. In one of these interpretations, the theorem is used directly as part of a particular approach to statistical inference. With the Bayesian probability interpretation the theorem expresses how a subjective degree of belief should rationally change to account for evidence: this is Bayesian inference, which is fundamental to Bayesian statistics. However, Bayes' theorem has applications in a wide range of calculations involving probabilities, not just in Bayesian inference.
Bayes' theorem is named after Rev. Thomas Bayes (/ˈbeɪz/; 1701–1761), who first[citation needed] showed how to use new evidence to update beliefs. It was further developed by Pierre-Simon Laplace, who first published the modern formulation in his 1812 Théorie analytique des probabilités. Sir Harold Jeffreys put Bayes' algorithm and Laplace's formulation on an axiomatic basis. Jeffreys wrote that Bayes' theorem "is to the theory of probability what the Pythagorean theorem is to geometry".[1]
Bayes' theorem is stated mathematically as the following equation:[2]
where A and B are events.
Suppose we want to know a person's probability of having cancer, but we know nothing about him or her. Despite not knowing anything about that person, a probability can be assigned based on the general prevalence of cancer. For the sake of this example, suppose it is 1%. This is known as the base rate or prior probability of having cancer. "Prior" refers to the time before being informed about the particular case at hand.
Next, suppose we find out that person is 65 years old. If we assume that cancer and age are related, this new piece of information can be used to better assess that person's chance of having cancer. More precisely, we'd like to know the probability that a person has cancer when it is known that he or she is 65 years old. This quantity is known as the current probability, where "current" refers to upon finding out information about the particular case at hand.
In order to apply knowledge of that person's age in conjunction with Bayes' Theorem, two additional pieces of information are needed. Note, however, that the additional information is not specific to that person. The needed information is as follows:
Knowing this, along with the base rate, we can calculate that a person who is age 65 has a probability of having cancer equal to
It may come as a surprise that even though being 65 years old increases the risk of having cancer, that person's probability of having cancer is still fairly low. This is because the base rate of cancer (regardless of age) is low. This illustrates both the importance of base rate, as well as that it is commonly neglected.[3] Base rate neglect leads to serious misinterpretation of statistics; therefore, special care should be taken to avoid such mistakes. Becoming familiar with Bayes' theorem is one way to combat the natural tendency to neglect base rates.
Suppose a drug test is 99% sensitive and 99% specific. That is, the test will produce 99% true positive results for drug users and 99% true negative results for non-drug users. Suppose that 0.5% of people are users of the drug. If a randomly selected individual tests positive, what is the probability he or she is a user?
Despite the apparent accuracy of the test, if an individual tests positive, it is more likely that they do not use the drug than that they do. This again illustrates the importance of base rates, and how the formation of policy can be egregiously misguided if base rates are neglected.
This surprising result arises because the number of non-users is very large compared to the number of users; thus the number of false positives (0.995%) outweighs the number of true positives (0.495%). To use concrete numbers, if 1000 individuals are tested, there are expected to be 995 non-users and 5 users. From the 995 non-users, 0.01 × 995 ≃ 10 false positives are expected. From the 5 users, 0.99 × 5 ≃ 5 true positives are expected. Out of 15 positive results, only 5, about 33%, are genuine.
Note: The importance of specificity can be illustrated by showing that even if sensitivity is 100% and specificity is at 99% the probability of the person being a drug user is ≈33% but if the specificity is changed to 99.5% and the sensitivity is dropped down to 99% the probability of the person being a drug user rises to 49.8%.
The entire output of a factory is produced on three machines. The three machines account for 20%, 30%, and 50% of the output, respectively. The fraction of defective items produced is this: for the first machine, 5%; for the second machine, 3%; for the third machine, 1%. If an item is chosen at random from the total output and is found to be defective, what is the probability that it was produced by the third machine?
A solution is as follows. Let Ai denote the event that a randomly chosen item was made by the ith machine (for i = 1,2,3). Let B denote the event that a randomly chosen item is defective. Then, we are given the following information:
If the item was made by machine A1, then the probability that it is defective is 0.05; that is, P(B | A1) = 0.05. Overall, we have
To answer the original question, we first find P(B). That can be done in the following way:
Hence 2.4% of the total output of the factory is defective.
We are given that B has occurred, and we want to calculate the conditional probability of A3. By Bayes' theorem,
Given that the item is defective, the probability that it was made by the third machine is only 5/24. Although machine 3 produces half of the total output, it produces a much smaller fraction of the defective items. Hence the knowledge that the item selected was defective enables us to replace the prior probability P(A3) = 1/2 by the smaller posterior probability P(A3 | B) = 5/24.
The interpretation of Bayes' theorem depends on the interpretation of probability ascribed to the terms. The two main interpretations are described below.
In the Bayesian (or epistemological) interpretation, probability measures a degree of belief. Bayes' theorem then links the degree of belief in a proposition before and after accounting for evidence. For example, suppose it is believed with 50% certainty that a coin is twice as likely to land heads than tails. If the coin is flipped a number of times and the outcomes observed, that degree of belief may rise, fall or remain the same depending on the results.
For proposition A and evidence B,
For more on the application of Bayes' theorem under the Bayesian interpretation of probability, see Bayesian inference.
In the frequentist interpretation, probability measures a proportion of outcomes. For example, suppose an experiment is performed many times. P(A) is the proportion of outcomes with property A, and P(B) that with property B. P(B | A) is the proportion of outcomes with property B out of outcomes with property A, and P(A | B) the proportion of those with A out of those with B.
The role of Bayes' theorem is best visualized with tree diagrams, as shown to the right. The two diagrams partition the same outcomes by A and B in opposite orders, to obtain the inverse probabilities. Bayes' theorem serves as the link between these different partitionings.
An entomologist spots what might be a rare subspecies of beetle, due to the pattern on its back. In the rare subspecies, 98% have the pattern, or P(Pattern | Rare) = 98%. In the common subspecies, 5% have the pattern. The rare subspecies accounts for only 0.1% of the population. How likely is the beetle having the pattern to be rare, or what is P(Rare | Pattern)?
From the extended form of Bayes' theorem (since any beetle can be only rare or common),
For events A and B, provided that P(B) ≠ 0,
In many applications, for instance in Bayesian inference, the event B is fixed in the discussion, and we wish to consider the impact of its having been observed on our belief in various possible events A. In such a situation the denominator of the last expression, the probability of the given evidence B, is fixed; what we want to vary is A. Bayes' theorem then shows that the posterior probabilities are proportional to the numerator:
In words: posterior is proportional to prior times likelihood.[4]
If events A1, A2, ..., are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, i.e., one of them is certain to occur but no two can occur together, and we know their probabilities up to proportionality, then we can determine the proportionality constant by using the fact that their probabilities must add up to one. For instance, for a given event A, the event A itself and its complement ¬A are exclusive and exhaustive. Denoting the constant of proportionality by c we have
Adding these two formulas we deduce that
Another form of Bayes' Theorem that is generally encountered when looking at two competing statements or hypotheses is:
For an epistemological interpretation:
For proposition A and evidence or background B,[5]
Often, for some partition {Aj} of the event space, the event space is given or conceptualized in terms of P(Aj) and P(B | Aj). It is then useful to compute P(B) using the law of total probability:
In the special case where A is a binary variable:
Consider a sample space Ω generated by two random variables X and Y. In principle, Bayes' theorem applies to the events A = {X = x} and B = {Y = y}. However, terms become 0 at points where either variable has finite probability density. To remain useful, Bayes' theorem may be formulated in terms of the relevant densities (see Derivation).
If X is continuous and Y is discrete,
If X is discrete and Y is continuous,
If both X and Y are continuous,
A continuous event space is often conceptualized in terms of the numerator terms. It is then useful to eliminate the denominator using the law of total probability. For fY(y), this becomes an integral:
Bayes' rule is Bayes' theorem in odds form.
where
is called the Bayes factor or likelihood ratio and the odds between two events is simply the ratio of the probabilities of the two events. Thus
So the rule says that the posterior odds are the prior odds times the Bayes factor, or in other words, posterior is proportional to prior times likelihood.
Bayes' theorem may be derived from the definition of conditional probability:
For two continuous random variables X and Y, Bayes' theorem may be analogously derived from the definition of conditional density:
Bayes' theorem was named after the Reverend Thomas Bayes (1701–61), who studied how to compute a distribution for the probability parameter of a binomial distribution (in modern terminology). Bayes' unpublished manuscript was significantly edited by Richard Price before it was posthumously read at the Royal Society. Price edited[6] Bayes' major work An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances (1763), which appeared in Philosophical Transactions,[7] and contains Bayes' Theorem. Price wrote an introduction to the paper which provides some of the philosophical basis of Bayesian statistics. In 1765 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his work on the legacy of Bayes.[8][9]
The French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace reproduced and extended Bayes' results in 1774, apparently quite unaware of Bayes' work.[10][11] Stephen Stigler suggested in 1983 that Bayes' theorem was discovered by Nicholas Saunderson some time before Bayes;[12] that interpretation, however, has been disputed.[13]
Martyn Hooper[14] and Sharon McGrayne[15] have argued that Richard Price's contribution was substantial:
By modern standards, we should refer to the Bayes–Price rule. Price discovered Bayes' work, recognized its importance, corrected it, contributed to the article, and found a use for it. The modern convention of employing Bayes' name alone is unfair but so entrenched that anything else makes little sense.
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