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I try to use Bayes Theorem to calculate the probability of $P(A|B)$. I have $P(A)$ in column1, $P(B|A)$ in colmn2, $P(B)$ in column 3. I get the following:

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my calculations were:

$$P(B/A) = 0.8\times A$$ $$P(B) = (Bx*0,55)+((1-Bx)*(0,55))$$ $$P(A/B) = (Ax*Bx)/Cx$$

The probability gets above 1. What am I doing wrong?

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  • $\begingroup$ What is $Bx$, $Ax$, and $Cx$? $\endgroup$
    – OmG
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 13:47
  • $\begingroup$ The columns a=column1, b column2, etc.. x indicates the element per row. $\endgroup$
    – havaey
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 13:54
  • $\begingroup$ Then your data in the last two rows is obviously wrong! It's simply impossible for P(B | A) * P(A) > P(B) $\endgroup$
    – ManRow
    Commented Nov 28, 2019 at 11:45

3 Answers 3

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Well, then your data is clearly wrong!!

Bayes Theorem or not, you simply cannot have $$P\left(B\,|\,A \right) \times P\left(A\right) > P\left(B\right) $$ but this "impossibility" is exactly what happens in your last two rows!!

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  • $\begingroup$ Perfect answer. To (slightly) expand your argument the inequality is impossible by monotonicity of probability since $P(A \cap B) = P(B \mid A) P(A)$ and $A \cap B \subseteq B$. $\endgroup$
    – Jim
    Commented Apr 27, 2022 at 2:44
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The problem is your data! For example, the last row shows that $\mathbb{P}(A) = 1$ and $\mathbb{P}(B|A) = 0.8$. If $\mathbb{P}(A) = 1$ means $A$ is equivalent to all possiblities of event world. Hence, $\mathbb{P}(B|A)$ couldn't be anything except 1.

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  • $\begingroup$ That explains why things go wrong for the last row but not why they go wrong in the second to last row, rtight? $\endgroup$
    – havaey
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 13:58
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I agree with @OmG that the table is wrong. However, $\mathbb{P}(B\mid A)$ must be equal to $\mathbb{P}(B)$ and not $1$.

Intuitively: as @OmG said, $\mathbb{P}(A)=1$ means that under $\mathbb{P}$ the event $A$ is not informative therefore you will not update the probability of $B$ after conditioning on $A$ and thus $\mathbb{P}(B\mid A)$ must be equal to $\mathbb{P}(B)$.

Formally: by definition of the conditional probability of an event, $$\mathbb{P}(B\mid A)=\frac{\mathbb{P}(B \cap A)}{\mathbb{P}(A)}=\mathbb{P}(B),$$ since $\mathbb{P}(A)=1$. Thus, $\mathbb{P}(B \cap A)=\mathbb{P}(B)$. It contradicts your table.

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