Teaching Bayesian Statistics To Intelligence Analysts: Lessons Learned

Abstract

The Community must develop and integrate into regular use new tools that can assist analysts in filtering and correlating the vast quantities of information that threaten to overwhelm the analytic process…—Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States.Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (The WMD Report)1Unlike the other social sciences and, particularly, the physical sciences, where scientists get to choose the questions they wish to answer and experiments are carefully designed to confirm or negate hypotheses, intelligence analysis requires analysts to deal with the demands of decision makers and estimate the intentions of foreign actors, criminals or business competitors in an environment filled with uncertainty and even deliberate deception.

Keywords

• Intelligence analysis
• Intelligence studies/education
• Methodology
• Security studies