Monte Carlo and the Holy Grail

On 31 Dec 2010, someone wrote in:

A British Bayesian curiosity: Adrian Smith has just been knighted, and so becomes Sir Adrian. He can’t be the first Bayesian knight, as Harold Jeffreys was Sir Harold.

I replied by pointing to this discussion from 2008, and adding: Perhaps Spiegelhalter can be knighted next. Or maybe Ripley!

My correspondent replied the next day:

I doubt that Ripley will ever get an Honour. But Spiegelhalter did strike me as the most likely next Bayesian knight in 5-10 years. I would not want to put a number on the probability. Please don’t quote me in public on that, unless anonymously.

Now here it is, 4 1/2 years later, and the person informs me that David Spiegelhalter was indeed knighted in 2014!

All hail Lord Spiegelhalter! He will smite you if you communicate statistics poorly.

8 thoughts on “Monte Carlo and the Holy Grail

    • Andrw just likes to mess with people on his blog. I said the same thing and he said, “of course I know that”, but thought it was funny. I don’t get it, but then I don’t get a lot of British humour, either, despite living there for three years.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *