This page was last edited on 02/07/02 by Malcolm R Forster

 

Final Version, March 8, 2001

Why Likelihood? (PDF) 

 

New, Sept. 9, 2001

Reply to Boik and Kruse  (PDF)

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Forster, Malcolm R. and Elliott Sober:  "Why Likelihood?," forthcoming in Mark Taper and Subhash Lele (eds), Likelihood and Evidence, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 

The Likelihood Principle has been defended on Bayesian grounds, on the grounds that it coincides and systematizes intuitive judgments about example problems, and by appeal to the fact that it generalizes what is true when hypotheses have deductive consequences about observations.  Here we divide the Principle into two parts -- one qualitative, the other quantitative -- and evaluate each in the light of the Akaike information criterion.  Both turn out to be correct in a special case (when the competing hypotheses have the same number of adjustable parameters), but not otherwise.  

Key References

In defense of likelihood:

Edwards, A. W. F. (1987): Likelihood. Expanded Edition. Baltimore and London:  Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hacking, Ian (1965).  Logic of Statistical Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Royall, Richard M. (1997):  Statistical Evidence: A likelihood paradigm. Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall/CRC.