MHB Showing Conditional Independence Does Not Imply Independence

Click For Summary
Conditional independence of events X and Y given Z does not imply that X and Y are independent. An example using coin tosses illustrates that while X (first coin tails) and Y (second coin tails) can be conditionally independent given Z (both coins same), they are not independent overall. To demonstrate this, one can analyze a basketball player's shot outcomes, where the probability of scoring on the second shot depends on whether the first shot was made. By calculating the probabilities of these events conditioned on a third event, it can be shown that the product of the conditional probabilities does not equal the joint conditional probability. This highlights the distinction between conditional independence and overall independence.
Jason4
Messages
27
Reaction score
0
I know this isn't quite advanced probability, but I'm not sure if I have this right.

I want to show that conditional independence of $X$ and $Y$ given $Z$ does not imply independence of $X$ and $Y$ (and vice versa).

So I used coin tosses where:

$X=\{$ first coin tails $\}$

$Y=\{$ second coin tails $\}$

$Z=\{$ both coins same $\}$

I can show that independence does not imply conditional independence.

How do I show that conditional independence does not imply independence?
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
Well to answer such a question, you need to take two events that are not independent and show they are conditionally independent given a third event. Example:A basketball player has two shots.Let A be the event that the player scores the first shot. Assume P(A) = 0.3Let B be the event that the player scores the second shot. Assume P(B/A) = 0.2 and P(B/A' ) = 0.4 (if he/she scores the first shot, he/she has less probability of scoring the second)Let C be the event that both shot are scored. Clearly, A and B are not independent. Try to find P(A/C) and P(B/C) and P( (A and B)/C) and prove that P(A/C)*P(B/C) = P( (A and B) /C).
 
The standard _A " operator" maps a Null Hypothesis Ho into a decision set { Do not reject:=1 and reject :=0}. In this sense ( HA)_A , makes no sense. Since H0, HA aren't exhaustive, can we find an alternative operator, _A' , so that ( H_A)_A' makes sense? Isn't Pearson Neyman related to this? Hope I'm making sense. Edit: I was motivated by a superficial similarity of the idea with double transposition of matrices M, with ## (M^{T})^{T}=M##, and just wanted to see if it made sense to talk...

Similar threads

  • · Replies 57 ·
2
Replies
57
Views
6K
  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
2K
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
2K
  • · Replies 64 ·
3
Replies
64
Views
5K
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
2K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
2K
  • · Replies 45 ·
2
Replies
45
Views
5K
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
1K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
2K