Bayesian Inference

Bayesian inference is a statistical paradigm in which probability represents degrees of belief rather than long-run frequencies. It encodes prior knowledge about parameters in a prior distribution, combines that prior with the likelihood of observed data via Bayes' theorem, and produces a posterior distribution that quantifies updated uncertainty. The foundational theorem was published posthumously by Thomas Bayes in 1763 and subsequently systematized by Pierre-Simon Laplace in his 1812 Théorie analytique des probabilités.