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Is Random Forest a special case of AdaBoost?

What is the difference if we use Decision Tree as Base estimator in AdaBoost algorithm ?

Solution

  • Is Random Forest a special case of AdaBoost?

    Most certainly not; Random Forest is a case of bagging ensemble algorithm (short for bootstrap aggregating), which is different from boosting - check here for their differences.

    What is the difference if we use Decision Tree as Base estimator in AdaBoost algorithm ?

    You don't get a Random Forest, but a Gradient Tree Boosting Machine, available in several packages like xgboost (R/Python), gbm (R), scikit-learn (Python) etc.

    Check chapter 8 of the excellent (and freely available) book An Introduction to Statistical Learning for more, or The Elements of Statistical Learning (heavy in math & theory, not for the faint-hearted)...