Of priors and prejudice
arXiv:1205.1946
Abstract
If species abundance distributions are dominated by the simple processes of individuals in a community giving birth and death independently, the result is a log series distribution. I calculate this in a number of different ways, using both master equations and also the combinatoric methods of elementary statistical mechanics. Considerable light is shed on the nature and role of 'priors' in the language of MaxEnt.
9 pages. See also 2010 arXiv:1002.508