Although it may seem cumbersome at first, Bayes’ theorem is one of the most powerful measurement tools at our disposal. It is the way it reframes the measurement question that makes it so useful. Given a particular observation, it may seem more obvious to frame a measurement by asking the question, “What can I conclude from this observation?” or, in probabilistic terms, “What is the probability X is true, given my observation?” But Bayes showed us that we could, instead, start with the question, “What is the probability of this observation if X were true?”
