Anonymous
7/20/2025, 2:13:26 PM No.16729272
The question of where humans came from is as old as humankind itself. Throughout history, we have developed different ideas, mostly centered around creation myths, in order to explain existence.
Today we learn that the human race has been evolved in africa.
My question is: What about using Bayesian statistics to give us a clear probability estimate regarding the Out of Africa theory?
We guess the likelihood of human (and protohuman) fossils being found in different parts of the world and use Bayes' theorem backwards. If we know how likely it is that the fossils are distributed in this way given different theories are true, we can infer how likely it is that humanity originated in Africa.
Some points remain in the dubious:
- What would be a good a priori likelihood? Should we go with 50% since the theory is either true or false, or should we consider a set of theories and assign each the same probability, because we do not know which one is true?
Should we even start from geographical grounds and give each region of Earth the same chance?
- How can we calculate the probability of distribution based on the assumption that the Out of Africa theory is true? Most likely, we would expect most fossils, especially the oldest ones, to be found in Africa, right?
- Should we calculate different P(A|B) values for various empirical data sets B (B_1, B_2 etc.) and then combine them, or should we develop one big formula for all?
What do you think, follow /sci/tards?
Today we learn that the human race has been evolved in africa.
My question is: What about using Bayesian statistics to give us a clear probability estimate regarding the Out of Africa theory?
We guess the likelihood of human (and protohuman) fossils being found in different parts of the world and use Bayes' theorem backwards. If we know how likely it is that the fossils are distributed in this way given different theories are true, we can infer how likely it is that humanity originated in Africa.
Some points remain in the dubious:
- What would be a good a priori likelihood? Should we go with 50% since the theory is either true or false, or should we consider a set of theories and assign each the same probability, because we do not know which one is true?
Should we even start from geographical grounds and give each region of Earth the same chance?
- How can we calculate the probability of distribution based on the assumption that the Out of Africa theory is true? Most likely, we would expect most fossils, especially the oldest ones, to be found in Africa, right?
- Should we calculate different P(A|B) values for various empirical data sets B (B_1, B_2 etc.) and then combine them, or should we develop one big formula for all?
What do you think, follow /sci/tards?