201–210 of 227 posts
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I’d recommend reading “How to make the world count” instead of a work of a morally bankrupt guy who used the very same tricks he criticized to discredit the cancer studies of tobacco usage.
I suppose you mean the book "How to Make the World Add Up" of Tim Harford?! :-)
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I think almost everyone threw a dice quite a few times while playing board games.
Maybe people would have a better understanding of percentages if 20-sided dice were used more. "This has a 95% chance to succeed" -> roll a d20, anything but 1 is a success Meanwhile 6-sided dice don't map to nice numbers, and having two dice makes the maths even harder to intuit
I was having a conversation with my dad about how if a virus had a 10% death rate it would be terrifying. His reply was that 10% was nothing, that means you've got 90% chance to survive. Then said you've probably got a 10% chance of being hit by a bus every time you cross the road. Just absolutely no idea what probabilities are at all or ability to extrapolate probabilities from real world lived experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe people would have a better understanding of percentages if 20-sided dice were used more. "This has a 95% chance to succeed" -> roll a d20, anything but 1 is a success Meanwhile 6-sided dice don't map to nice numbers, and having two dice makes the maths even harder to intuit
I think 1/2 and 1/3 are quite nice as far as numbers go! Also 2/36 = 0.5555... is not that far from 5%
> How much do you understand about statistics and p-values? I suspect that it’s far far less than 38% of people who actually understand statistics to this level. I suspect if someone on HN went around and asked their co workers to explain what a P value is in 2 sentences, it would be less than 10% of a (presumably) highly educated workforce. I suspect about 40% of adults are unable to tell the difference between mean…
In my experience, a not insignificant chunk of students actively in a stats class think that a p value is the probability of the null hypothesis. My money is on more like 3% of educated professionals.
>> found that 62% of respondents reported no or limited statistical knowledge The other 38% didn't understand the question...(my extrapolation) I did a couple semesters of statistics at uni. And I can confidently say that the number of people who can answer 3 simple questions on statistics (like say mean versus medians, confidence levels or margins of error) is, well, a rounding error from 0. Indeed, statistically, n…
> mean versus medians, confidence levels or margins of error It's basic when you are attending an undergraduate course but most people can understand mean (as a dictionary might generically define it) and have a general feeling for margin of error (again, not in the mathematical way.) Statistics has been the most difficult course in my CS course. For some reason when I start counting events to get a probability I fin…
To formulate the probability of B happening, for example, you have to make an educated guess. Create a functional equation that map A (all possibilities) to B (desired possibility). Then you make a ratio-fraction with the equation in the numerator and set A in the denominator. Using Algebra, try to eliminate references to A in both the numerator and denominator to give you an educated guess of what the probability is.
Been saying it for years. Basic probability theory should be taught in schools, it's a strong tool for understanding the world around you.
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Cue prediction markets etc. There are mechanisms to aggregate this and have a wisdom of crowd effect.
I'm not very familiar with how they work. Don't prediction markets give the individual gambler a boolean choice and this results in a picture of the split over the population ? There's no granular option for the individual to bet 40% vs. 60% for something happening, the vote with 100% confidence that Spain wins the World Cup, they don't give 85% chance of winning.