ABSTRACT
Hans ´ips a fair coin, launches it high, and lets it fall where you can’t see it. Then he steps on it. It’s already ´ipped, but you can’t see the result. He asks you, “What is the probability that the coin has landed with heads up?” Intuitively, you would answer as follows:
But you will not answer that way if you are a frequentist! If you are a frequentist, you will answer as follows:
Sounds like a long way to go to describe what is essentially a 50% probability! Further, the two interpretations seem hardly different: One statement uses the word probability, and the other uses the word con’dence. Yet the distinction between probability and con dence is very important to those who adhere to the frequentist camp of statistics. For frequentists, once the data are observed (i.e., once DATA turn into data) nothing is random, and no probability statements can be made.
