Not if for some reason you are nearly sure that it was before/after a certain date (which I wasn’t); I felt that to a first approximation a normal distribution described my beliefs (as of the time I was answering) decently enough, but YMMV.
Certainly you’re sure that Newton didn’t live before 1000 AD and didn’t survive to 1800 AD. Immediately a Gaussian prior can be improved, substantially. See Emile’s comment above as well.
Meh. On a Gaussian prior of mean fvkgrra friragl, s.d. 18, knowing that it’s between 1000 and 1800 (or even between fvkgrra uhaqerq and friragrra svsgl) doesn’t change that much, does it.
(Edited to rot-13 the years… sorry for anyone who read them before taking the test.)
I was entirely sure (20 decibels, at least) it was before gur Nzrevpna Eribyhgvba. That plus “some padding but not too much” got me within the margin of error, but I only gave 2 decibels of confidence that it would be.
Not if for some reason you are nearly sure that it was before/after a certain date (which I wasn’t); I felt that to a first approximation a normal distribution described my beliefs (as of the time I was answering) decently enough, but YMMV.
Certainly you’re sure that Newton didn’t live before 1000 AD and didn’t survive to 1800 AD. Immediately a Gaussian prior can be improved, substantially. See Emile’s comment above as well.
Meh. On a Gaussian prior of mean fvkgrra friragl, s.d. 18, knowing that it’s between 1000 and 1800 (or even between fvkgrra uhaqerq and friragrra svsgl) doesn’t change that much, does it.
(Edited to rot-13 the years… sorry for anyone who read them before taking the test.)
I was entirely sure (20 decibels, at least) it was before gur Nzrevpna Eribyhgvba. That plus “some padding but not too much” got me within the margin of error, but I only gave 2 decibels of confidence that it would be.