bayesian madness

A non-biologist friend of mine, on proofreading bits of the thesis-in-progress, got terribly excited about the program Mr Bayes.

"Mr Bayes!" she exclaimed. "That's the perfect name for a tabby cat!"

Her comments on the section where I actually described Bayesian methods in phylogenetics consisted mainly of and >.< faces. "The words seem to be in the right order for the English language?" was her concession.

Don't blame her, obviously. I periodically beat myself over the head with my notes about Bayesian & likelihood methods; this appears to be an effective means toward keeping the information in my head. Today I found a couple more implements of self-harm at Paul Agapow's site, the first his own primer, the second a link to Peter Foster's The Idiot's Guide to the Zen of Likelihood in a Nutshell in Seven Days for Dummies. Tee hee.

So browsing the talk titles for the Evolution 2006 meeting, I came to the conclusion that biologists, especially those who dabble in phylogenetics, tend to have a very specific sense of humour. By specific, I mean "take any opportunity to make a pun, an allusion, or maximise alliteration to the point of tongue-twisting" and dude, there's nothing wrong with that. You wrap your brain around priors and posteriors and your brain wants to crack a funny. It's just the way it is.