An urn has balls, including of one colour and of the other, with . After a uniform first draw, an independent decision returns that ball with probability ; the second draw is uniform from the remaining contents. Let mean the th draw has the first colour and mean replacement. The two relevant joint probabilities are
Applying Bayes' theorem and cancelling the common factors gives the displayed conditional probability. It is independent of and satisfies
Two different observed colours therefore decrease the posterior probability of replacement: removing the first colour makes the second more likely. The replacement decision must be independent of the first draw for this formula; its marginal probability alone does not specify the model.

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