Bayesian versus frequentist
The preceding example was frankly too easy. In practice, we can hardly ever truly count the number of ways something can happen. For example, let’s say that we want to know the probability of a random person smoking cigarettes at least once a day. If we wanted to approach this problem using the classical method (the previous formula), we would need to figure out how many different ways a person is a smoker—someone who smokes at least once a day—which is not possible!
When faced with such a problem, two main schools of thought are considered when it comes to calculating probabilities in practice: the Frequentist approach and the Bayesian approach. This chapter will focus heavily on the Frequentist approach, while the subsequent chapter will dive into the Bayesian approach.
Frequentist approach
In a Frequentist approach, the probability of an event is calculated through experimentation. It uses the past in order to predict the...
