# [译作]一些统计名词的新名字

Lasso：Rob你起的名字不错呀！不过人们根本看不出来它是干啥的。看看这个怎么样？

p值：有没有觉得这名字挺烂的？我能想到的最好名字大概是：

U-统计量：显然它就是：

. 没有比0更常用的常量了…鉴于这东西还没有人命名过，我决定把自己载入史册：

Bayesian Inference. Bayes did use his famous theorem to do a calculation. But it was really Laplace who systematically used Bayes’ theorem for inference.
New Name: Laplacian Inference.

Bayesian Nets. A Bayes nets is just a directed acyclic graph endowed with probability distribution. This has nothing to do with Bayesian — oops, I mean Laplacian — inference. According to Wikipedia, it was Judea Pearl who came up with the name.
New Name: Pearl Graph.

The Bayes Classification Rule. Give {(X,Y)}, with {Yin {0,1}}, the optimal classifier is to guess that {Y=1} when {P(Y=1|X=x)geq 1/2} and to guess that {Y=0} when {P(Y=1|X=x)< 1/2}. This is often called the Bayes rule. This is confusing for many reasons. Since this rule is a sort of gold standard how about:
New Name: The Golden Rule.

Unbiased Estimator. Talk about a name that promises more than it delivers.
New Name: Mean Centered Estimator.

Credible Set. This is a set with a specified posterior probability content such as: here is a 95 percent credible set. Might as well make it sound more exciting.
New Name: Incredible Set.

Confidence Interval. I am tempted to suggest “Uniform Frequency Coverage Set” but that’s clumsy. However it does yield a good acronym if you permute the letter a bit.
New Name: Coverage Set.

The Bootstrap. If I remember correctly, Brad Efron considered several names and John Tukey suggested “the shotgun.” Brad, you should have listened to Tukey.
New Name: The Shotgun.

Causal Inference. For some reason, whenever I try to type “causal” I end up typing “casual.” Anyway, the mere mention of causation upsets some people. Some people call causal inference “the analysis of treatment effects” but that’s boring. I suggest we go with the opposite of casual:
New Name: Formal Inference.

The Central Limit Theorem. Boring! For historical reasons I suggest:
de Moivre’s Theorem.

The Law of Large Numbers. Another boring name. Again, to respect history I suggest:
New Name: Bernoulli’s Theorem.

Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimator. Let’s just eliminate this one.

The lasso. Nice try Rob, but most people don’t even know what it stands for. How about this:
New Name: the Taser. (Tibshirani’s Awesome Sparse Estimator for regression).

Stigler’s law of eponymy. If you don’t know what this is, check it out on Wikipedia. The you’ll understand why it name should be:
New Name: Stigler’s law of eponymy.

Neural nets. Let’s call them what they are.
(Not so) New name: Nonlinear regression.

p-values. I hope you’ll agree that this is a less than inspiring name. The best I can come up with is:
New Name: Fisher Statistic.

Support Vector Machines. This might get the award for the worst name ever. Sounds like some industrial device in a factory. Since we already like the acronym VC, I suggest:
New Name: Vapnik Classifier.

U-statistic. I think this one is obvious.
New Name: iStatistic.

Kernels. In statistics, this refers to a type of local smoothing, such as kernel density estimation and Nadaraya-Watson kernel regression. Some people use “Parzen Window” which sounds like something you buy when remodeling your house. But in Machine Learning it is used to refer to Mercer kernels with play a part in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces. We don’t really need new names we just need to clarify how we use the terms:
New Usage: Smoothing Kernels for density estimators etc. Mercer kernels for kernels that generate a RKHS.

Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space. Saying this phrase is exhausting. The acronym RKHS is not much better. If we used history as a guide we’d say Aronszajn-Bergman space but that’s just as clumsy. How about:
New Name: Mercer Space.

. No constant is used more than 0. Since no one else has ever names it, this is my chance for a place in history.
New Name: Wasserman’s Constant.

## 《[译作]一些统计名词的新名字》有11个想法

1. song说道：

Bayes的恶搞~Fisher的＂P＂~ANN的节操碎满地~

2. U统计量被改成i统计量，估计基本是因为U是次序统计量$(X_1,\ldots,X_n)$的函数，而次序统计量在非参中基本都是完备充分的，U是无偏估计..所以次序次序..就是那个i的位置吧？

1. 我前段时间在某本神奇的书上看到假设检验计算U统计量，几乎是Z统计量…后来百度之才知道我是有多么的文盲…原来标准正态分布称为U分布 -_-||

http://baike.baidu.com/view/1419652.htm

3. 赞“白努力定理”，再到Larry的桌上看一下他的Mac 就理解 “i统计量”了。