Bayesian Thinking for Toddlers: The Cartoon – Bayesian Spectacles
Menu
Blog
For better or for worse, it appears that my most appreciated work is the children’s book Bayesian Thinking for Toddlers (the intro post is here and an exegesis is here). Piled up in my office is a stack of self-printed hardcopies that I hand out to students and colleagues; other than that, the book is not easy to obtain. Maybe I should have tried harder to woo publishers — but the genre is nonstandard so publishers may not immediately recognize that the book might sell well (their doubts may increase further when they learn that the book pdf is freely available online). If you know of publishers that are interested in printing the book please let me know.
Anyway, recently I asked graphical artist Viktor Beekman to restyle the book in cartoon form. The result is available as a 46MB pdf, either through the Artwork Library or directly by clicking here. Below I have pasted screenshots from each page. Let’s go!
References
Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2020). Bayesian Thinking for Toddlers. A Dutch version ("Bayesiaans Denken voor Peuters") is here, a German version ("Bayesianisches Denken mit Dinosauriern") is here, a Turkish version ("Dinozorlar, Kurabiyeler ve Bayesçi Düşünce") is here, and a Chinese version ("贝叶斯思维儿童读本") is here. An exegesis of the book is here.
About The Author
Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
Eric-Jan (EJ) Wagenmakers is professor in Bayesian Methodology at the Psychological Methods Group at the University of Amsterdam.
Why Academics Should Use AI for Writing: A Case Study
May 28 - 2026
LT;DR In the current era of AI, there is no longer any excuse for manuscripts that contain typographical errors, grammatical…
There is No Such Thing as Forgetting (Says an English Opium-Eater)
May 06 - 2026
Recently I was hunting for an epigraph to start a manuscript on the topic of forgetting. Claude helpfully suggested several…
A Transcendental Dance
April 14 - 2026
tl;dr: Bruss and Paindaveine did all of this already in December 2025, and better. The initial title of this post…