ated that the test did not take proper account of the prior probability and thus made a tacit initial assumption of guilt. In addition to its use, or misuse, in court cases, Bayesian inference methods lie behind a number of new products on the market. For example, the paperclip advisor that pops up on the screen of users of Microsoft Office -- the system monitors the user's actions and uses Bayesian inference to predict likely future actions and provide appropriate advice accordingly. For another example, chemists can take advantage of a software system that uses Bayesian methods to improve the resolution of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrum data. Chemists use such data to work out the molecular structure of substances they wish to analyze. The system uses Bayes' formula to combine the new data from the NMR device with existing NMR data, a procedure that can improve the resolution of the data by several orders of magnitude. Other recent uses of Bayesian inference are in the evaluation of new drugs and medical treatments, the analysis of human DNA to identify particular genes, and in analyzing police arrest data to see if any officers have been targeting one particular ethnic group. CHAPTER VI BOMB BAYES OPENAnother particularly fine example of Bayes' theorem in action is displayed in the following example. On January 17, 1966, while attempting a mid-air refuel at 30,000 feet off the coast if Palmares Spain, a Strategic Air Command B-52 Statofortress Bomber (See illustration 1), collided with an air borne KC-135 Stratotanker fuel tanker aircraft. The collision killed all four of the crewmembers on the KC-135 and three of the seven crewmembers on the B-52.When the collision occurred, the aircraft was carrying four Hydrogen Bombs. As result of the collision, all four bombs departed the aircraft in the air. Three of the four bombs were recovered almost immediately along the shore of Spain (See illustration 2). However, se...
