Posts tagged ‘distance ladder’

you are biased, I have an informative prior”

Hyunsook drew attention to this paper (arXiv:0709.4531v1) by Brad Schaefer on the underdispersed measurements of the distances to LMC. He makes a compelling case that since 2002 published numbers in the literature have been hewing to an “acceptable number”, possibly in an unconscious effort to pass muster with their referees. Essentially, the distribution of the best-fit distances are much more closely clustered than you would expect from the quoted sizes of the error bars. Continue reading ‘“you are biased, I have an informative prior”’ »