Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Matters Arising
  • Published:

Reply to: Overconfidence in Bayesian analyses of galaxy rotation curves

Nature Astronomy volume 4, pages 134–135 (2020)Cite this article

Subjects

The Original Article was published on 27 January 2020

replying to E. Cameron et al. Nature Astronomy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0998-2 (2020)

The Matters Arising by Cameron et al.1 recommends a more cautious and rigorous approach to statistical analysis in astronomy. We welcome this particular side of their communication as it helps stimulate efforts towards the adoption of better statistical methods in galaxy rotation curves—to which we contributed with our paper2. Indeed, we drew conclusions on the universality of the acceleration scale a0 and studied the posterior distributions of a large set of galaxies on a0. As Cameron et al. agree, the credible intervals were found within the Bayesian framework: that is, the marginalized posteriors on a0 were found using Bayes’ theorem to update the priors in light of the observational data; this process was done without introducing any approximation. Considering our paper, Cameron et al. also remark that: (1) better methods to select the nuisance parameters and the corresponding priors could be used; (2) a quality cut based on χ2 values should not be used; and (3) the compatibility of the posteriors should be assessed in a more robust way. In the following, after first clarifying the context of our work, we address these criticisms.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Data availability

All of the relevant data for this work can be found in the cited references.

References

  1. Cameron, E., Angus, G. W. & Burgess, J. M. Overconfidence in Bayesian analyses of galaxy rotation curves. Nat. Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0998-2 (2020).

  2. Rodrigues, D. C., Marra, V., Del Popolo, A. & Davari, Z. Absence of a fundamental acceleration scale in galaxies. Nat. Astron. 2, 668–672 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Frigerio Martins, C. & Salucci, P. Analysis of rotation curves in the framework of R n gravity. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 381, 1103–1108 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Gentile, G., Famaey, B. & de Blok, W. J. G. THINGS about MOND. Astron. Astrophys. 527, A76 (2011).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. McGaugh, S. S., Lelli, F. & Schombert, J. M. Radial acceleration relation in rotationally supported galaxies. Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 201101 (2016).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Randriamampandry, T. H. & Carignan, C. Galaxy mass models: MOND versus dark matter haloes. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 439, 2132–2145 (2014).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Rodrigues, D. C., Marra, V., Del Popolo, A. & Davari, Z. Reply to ‘Presence of a fundamental acceleration scale in galaxies’ and ‘A common Milgromiana cceleration scale in nature’. Nat. Astron. 2, 927–929 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Chang, Z. & Zhou, Y. Is there a fundamental acceleration scale in galaxies? Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 486, 1658–1666 (2019).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Li, P., Lelli, F., McGaugh, S. & Schombert, J. Fitting the radial acceleration relation to individual SPARC galaxies. Astron. Astrophys. 615, A3 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Feeney, S. M., Mortlock, D. J. & Dalmasso, N. Clarifying the Hubble constant tension with a Bayesian hierarchical model of the local distance ladder. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 476, 3861–3882 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Riess, A. G., Casertano, S., Yuan, W., Macri, L. M. & Scolnic, D. Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheid standards provide a 1% foundation for the determination of the Hubble constant and stronger evidence for physics beyond ΛCDM. Astrophys. J. 876, 85 (2019).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

D.C.R. and V.M. thank CNPq (Brazil) and FAPES (Brazil) for partial financial support. Z.D. thanks the Iran Science Elites Federation for financial support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology, CCE, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil

    Davi C. Rodrigues & Valerio Marra

  2. Department of Physics, CCE, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil

    Davi C. Rodrigues & Valerio Marra

  3. Dipartamento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy

    Antonino Del Popolo

  4. Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    Antonino Del Popolo

  5. INFN sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy

    Antonino Del Popolo

  6. Department of Physics, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Zahra Davari

Authors
  1. Davi C. Rodrigues
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Valerio Marra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Antonino Del Popolo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Zahra Davari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

D.C.R. and V.M. proposed the first draft and all of the authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Davi C. Rodrigues.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Astronomy thanks Johannes Buchner, Roberto Trotta and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rodrigues, D.C., Marra, V., Del Popolo, A. et al. Reply to: Overconfidence in Bayesian analyses of galaxy rotation curves. Nat Astron 4, 134–135 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0999-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0999-1

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing