Approximate Bayesian computation: Difference between revisions

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Although Diggle and Gratton's approach had opened a new frontier, their method was not yet exactly identical to what is now known as ABC, as it aimed at approximating the likelihood rather than the posterior distribution. An article of [[Simon Tavaré]] and co-authors was first to propose an ABC algorithm for posterior inference.<ref name="Tavare" /> In their seminal work, inference about the genealogy of DNA sequence data was considered, and in particular the problem of deciding the posterior distribution of the time to the [[most recent common ancestor]] of the sampled individuals. Such inference is analytically intractable for many demographic models, but the authors presented ways of simulating coalescent trees under the putative models. A sample from the posterior of model parameters was obtained by accepting/rejecting proposals based on comparing the number of segregating sites in the synthetic and real data. This work was followed by an applied study on modeling the variation in human Y chromosome by [[Jonathan K. Pritchard]] and co-authors using the ABC method.<ref name="Pritchard1999" /> Finally, the term approximate Bayesian computation was established by Mark Beaumont and co-authors,<ref name="Beaumont2002" /> extending further the ABC methodology and discussing the suitability of the ABC-approach more specifically for problems in population genetics. Since then, ABC has spread to applications outside population genetics, such as systems biology, epidemiology, and [[phylogeography]].

Approximate Bayesian computation can be understood as a kind of Bayesian version of [[indirect inference]].<ref>Drovandi, Christopher C. "ABC and indirect inference." Handbook of Approximate Bayesian Computation (2018): 179-209. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.01999</ref>.

==Method==