ABC thesis

I am currently in London for the thesis examination of Oliver Ratmann and, while I am more than disapointed at finding my favourite Indian restaurant closed!, I enjoy very much reading this very rich and unusual thesis. As posted earlier, I have disagreements with some of the choices made in this thesis, in particular the ambivalent role of the error $\varepsilon$, whose discussion is to appear in PNAS, but it opens a whole range of new directions. In particular, it proposes an examination of the successive inclusion of diverse statistics, a bit in the spirit of Joyce and Marjoram, discussed in this post. It also considers the impact of testing for the adequacy of a model as testing for the hypothesis $H_0: \epsilon=0$, which I find quite an interesting stance, even though I completely disagree with the approach! Indeed, a Bayes factor can be constructed almost formally for this hypothesis, thus formal Bayesian answers provided. But testing whether or not $\varepsilon=0$ does not make sense since, even when the model fits, $\varepsilon$ varies around zero. But this is nonetheless a very imaginative proposal! (Overall the thesis stands a very good chance for the Savage Prize 2011 if it is ever submitted!)

9 Responses to “ABC thesis”

1. [...] the paper (and the trend) an interesting and positive contribution to the idea already stressed by Oliver Ratmann and coauthors that model selection with ABC should be more exploratory than decisional…Here are a few [...]

2. [...] were having a (brainstorming) breakfast with Oliver Ratmann in the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen (definitely the ultimate London office on a warm sunny day!) and [...]

3. [...] to Statistics and Computing special ABC issue). Oliver Ratmann showed an implementation of his model assessment to several epidemic data, including a superb influenza sequence. Ajay Jasra explained the main [...]

4. Giles Warrack Says:

what is your favourite Indian restaurant in London (the one that was closed)?

5. [...] and a joint postdoc between Statistics and Biology, where I wish her the best! This makes for a second brilliant ABC thesis in one [...]

6. [...] and a joint postdoc between Statistics and Biology, where I wish her the best! This makes for a second brilliant ABC thesis in one [...]

7. [...] Xi'an's Og an attempt at bloggin, from scratch… « ABC thesis [...]

8. Oliver Ratmann Says:

Thanks for the nice post and your insightful comments on the thesis! I hope we will keep in touch on ABC methodology ^_^

best,
olli