Scoring Rules and the Inevitability of Probability

Abstract

Let a person express his uncertainty about an event E, conditional upon an event F, by a number x and let him be given, as a result, a score which depends on x and the truth or falsity of E when F is true. It is shown that if the scores are additive for different events and if the person chooses admissible values only, then there exists a known transform of the values x to values which are probabilities. In particular, it follows that values x derived by significance tests, confidence intervals or by the rules of fuzzy logic are inadmissible. Only probability is a sensible description of uncertainty.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1981
Accession Number
ADA097045

Entities

People

  • Dennis V. Lindley

Organizations

  • University of California, Berkeley

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Additives (Chemicals)
  • Ambiguity
  • Bayesian Inference
  • Boundaries
  • Data Analysis
  • Equations
  • Fuzzy Logic
  • Fuzzy Sets
  • Indicators
  • Intervals
  • Invariance
  • Language
  • New York
  • Numbers
  • Probability
  • Theorems
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Statistical inference.