Question

Which of the following feature of Bayesian methods is the disadvantage of it?

(a) A length and distance that gives the highest overall probability may be determined

(b) They are used to calculate evolutionary distance

(c) Computationally Bayesian methods are better

(d) A specific mutational model is required

This question was posed to me during an internship interview.

This question is from Bayesian Statistics in portion Sequence Alignment of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

The correct choice is (d) A specific mutational model is required

To elaborate: One disadvantage of the Bayesian approach is that a specific mutational model is required, whereas other methods, such as the maximum likelihood approach, can be used to estimate the best mutational model as well as the distance. Computationally, however, the Bayesian method is much more practical.