Dear Applied Statistics Workshop Community,
Our last meeting of the semester will be at *12:10 pm (EST) Wednesday,
April 27*, where Tasha Fairfield
<https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/people/tasha-fairfield>
(London
School of Economics and Political Science) presents "Recasting the Debate
on COVID-19 Origins in Bayesian Terms," a joint work with Andrew Charman
(Dept. of Physics, UC Berkeley).
Please note that this meeting will be *entirely on Zoom
<https://harvard.zoom.us/j/97004196610?pwd=eGFydkF5RDRjUlk5RVcyTjV6OStUQT09>*
.
*Abstract*
The debate on covid-19 origins has been politically fraught. Yet setting
aside conspiracy theories and the most implausible of the lab-leak
hypotheses, there is significant disagreement among qualified experts.
Some are adamant that the case should be considered closed in favor of
zoonosis, while others view the evidence as weak, even if they concede that
prior knowledge about previous epidemics favors zoonosis, and a few
maintain that some sort of laboratory leak is a firm possibility.
This project applies the methodology developed in *Social Inquiry and
Bayesian Inference *(CUP 2022) to reassess the debate. We apply Bayesian
reasoning to evaluate the inferential weight of available evidence in favor
of zoonosis vs. lab-leak hypotheses, drawing on published scientific
research, journalistic sources, and interviews with scientists and China
experts. The analysis highlights the flexibility of Bayesian reasoning—this
approach can be used to evaluate any kind of evidence, quantitative or
qualitative, including genetic data, epidemiological data, and information
from interviews and observational fieldwork.
In addition to clarifying the debate by separating prior odds, informed by
what we know from previous epidemics, from the weight of evidence
pertaining directly to SARS-CoV-2, the goals include evaluating to what
extent a Bayesian framework can help improve reasoning when evidence is
limited, communicate degrees of uncertainty more effectively, and
illuminate points of agreement or disagreement among experts on questions
with significant public policy implications.
The table of contents and first chapter of our book are available at:
https://tashafairfield.wixsite.com/home/bayes-book
*Zoom link*:
https://harvard.zoom.us/j/97004196610?pwd=eGFydkF5RDRjUlk5RVcyTjV6OStUQT09
*When:* Wednesday, April 27 at 12:10 - 1:30 pm.
*Schedule of the workshop*:
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/applied.stats.workshop-gov3009
Looking forward to seeing you all on Wednesday!
Best,
Sooahn