Statistical evolution

Original link	http://yamlb.wordpress.com/2006/03/23/statistical-evolution/
Date	2006-03-23
Status	publish

I found this picture on Bill Jeffery’s’ statistical course web page. Jeffery strongly prefers the bayesian approach to statistics.

To explain this comic, let’s quote Pr. Jefferys:

The basic difference between Bayesians and frequentists is this: Bayesians condition on the data actually observed, and consider the probability distribution on the hypotheses; they believe it reasonable to put probability distributions on hypotheses and they behave accordingly. Frequentists condition on a hypothesis of choice and consider the probability distribution on the data, whether observed or not; they do not think it reasonable to put probability distributions on hypotheses (in their opinion, one hypothesis is true, the rest are false, even if we do not know which is the case), and they behave accordingly.

Now the question is: What is thought by “Homo sapiens” ? I understand all others except him. Is it just to make something funny, to respect the original cartoon with five characters? Or can you assign a meaning on reasoning on the joint distribution?