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Comment by Sol_Hando

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Reddit commenter on Bayesian reasoning and COVID-19 origins
Time to make up probabilities out of thin air and call that Bayesian Reasoning like a boss. 😎 Seriously, if you’re working with uncommon events, with unknown probabilities, with multiple levels of evidence changing your priors, you probably aren’t actually using Bayesian Reasoning. You’re just coming up with probabilities that have such a large margin of error they could just as easily weaken your belief as reinforce it.
AI Verified (Aug 17, 2024)
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Sol_Hando, comment on "Three Bayesian estimates of COVID origin," Reddit r/slatestarcodex, August 17, 2024.
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Bayesian analysis is the right framework for settling the COVID-19 origins question
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AI Verified Relevant: in the linked Reddit thread about "Three Bayesian estimates of COVID origin," the quote directly argues that this kind of Bayesian reasoning for COVID-origins analysis relies on highly uncertain, effectively invented probabilities, making a stance against Bayesian analysis as the right framework substantially more likely. ([reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1eu595n/comment/lik4ugo/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
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AI Verified The author is mocking this use of Bayes for COVID origins: he calls it "mak[ing] up probabilities out of thin air" and says that in such cases "you probably aren’t actually using Bayesian Reasoning." In the Reddit thread specifically about "Three Bayesian estimates of COVID origin," that strongly implies opposition to Bayesian analysis as the right framework for settling the question. ([reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1eu595n/comment/lik4ugo/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago

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AI Verified Verified: the provided Reddit comment URL resolves to comment `lik4ugo` by `Sol_Hando`; the HTML view shows the quoted text, and Reddit’s JSON for the same comment preserves the exact body including the `😎` line and paragraph breaks. Search metadata dates it Saturday, August 17, 2024. ([reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1eu595n/comment/lik4ugo/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1h ago
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