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If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

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Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#31

Post by DINKDINK »

crispyambulance wrote: post #11

It depends on the context. Hillary Clinton had a >70% of winning the US presidential election according to the most responsible analyses (see 538: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ ). Most folks took 70% to mean that she would certainly win and were bitterly disappointed the morning after. On the other hand no sane person would (willingly) play Russian roulette with a 70% or even 5 of 6 cha…

>Hillary Clinton had a >70% of winning the US presidential election

Probabilities without confidence intervals[1] are by-and-large meaningless (She has a 90% chance of of winning with a confidence interval of +11% -100%). No amount of d3.js on 538's blog will change this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_interval

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#33

Post by [deleted] »

roter wrote: post #27

For what it is worth, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses the following definitions[0]: virtually certain: 99-100% extremely likely: 95-100% very likely: 90-100% likely: 66-100% about as likely as not: 33-66% more likely than not: >50-100% more unlikely than likely: 0- unlikely: 0-33% very unlikely: 0-10% extremely unlikely: 0-5% exceptionally unlikely: 0-1% [0]: https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/a…

[deleted]

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#34

Post by OscarCunningham »

DINKDINK wrote: post #31
crispyambulance wrote: post #11

It depends on the context. Hillary Clinton had a >70% of winning the US presidential election according to the most responsible analyses (see 538: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ ). Most folks took 70% to mean that she would certainly win and were bitterly disappointed the morning after. On the other hand no sane person would (willingly) play Russian roulette with a 70% or even 5 of 6 cha…

>Hillary Clinton had a >70% of winning the US presidential election Probabilities without confidence intervals[1] are by-and-large meaningless (She has a 90% chance of of winning with a confidence interval of +11% -100%). No amount of d3.js on 538's blog will change this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_interval

From a Bayesian perspective, or from a betting one, it doesn't make sense to put probabilities in a confidence interval. You might be uncertain about the world, but you can be certain about how much uncertainty you have, since it's a property of your own mind.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#35

Post by tinalumfoil »

roter wrote: post #27

For what it is worth, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses the following definitions[0]: virtually certain: 99-100% extremely likely: 95-100% very likely: 90-100% likely: 66-100% about as likely as not: 33-66% more likely than not: >50-100% more unlikely than likely: 0- unlikely: 0-33% very unlikely: 0-10% extremely unlikely: 0-5% exceptionally unlikely: 0-1% [0]: https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/a…

> virtually certain: 99-100%

Hopefully whoever wrote that never works in a data center, builds cars, sells insurance, gambles, works on crypto, does scientific computing, or is ever responsible for someone's life.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#36

Post by cat199 »

kashyapc wrote: post #29
resu_nimda wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident." This is a separate issue, and one I would disagree with. In fact I feel like this is a problematic attitude in our culture. Too many people overconfidently asserting their subjective viewpoints. Real life is full of nuance, gray area, second-guessing, and different perspectives; simple bold assertions usually don't hold water. David…

True, I fully see your point of people imposing their subjective views over-confidently. It is a real problem. :-( But I don't think Zinsser there means to get rid of all 'timidities'. The subtext my mind's eye read there was: don't overdo it. And he goes on to expand: "Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he's saying. Don'…

> It gets a bit annoying when I have to read or hear that everyday.

Or, this is an entirely subjective thing based on your own cultural presuppositions, and you are actually simply rude/prideful.

The coin flips both ways - there is no 'norm' here other than cultural/ethical/philosophical bias.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#37

Post by deft »

resu_nimda wrote: post #19
kashyapc wrote: post #6

That impreciseness is one reason why William Zinsser in his book, On Writing Well , argues: - "Get rid of the adjective-by-habit." - "Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident."

"Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident." This is a separate issue, and one I would disagree with. In fact I feel like this is a problematic attitude in our culture. Too many people overconfidently asserting their subjective viewpoints. Real life is full of nuance, gray area, second-guessing, and different perspectives; simple bold assertions usually don't hold water. David…

It depends on why you're writing. If you're using the word "likely" you probably are dealing with some sort of scientific data. Writing for a technical audience needs to be precise, and words need to be only used when necessary and well defined.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#38

Post by fragsworth »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #34
DINKDINK wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hillary Clinton had a >70% of winning the US presidential election Probabilities without confidence intervals[1] are by-and-large meaningless (She has a 90% chance of of winning with a confidence interval of +11% -100%). No amount of d3.js on 538's blog will change this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_interval

From a Bayesian perspective, or from a betting one, it doesn't make sense to put probabilities in a confidence interval. You might be uncertain about the world, but you can be certain about how much uncertainty you have, since it's a property of your own mind.

How do we quantify the difference between coin tosses, which we are very certain is 50% likely to end up heads, from political elections, where we only have a few examples to go off of?

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#40

Post by edbaskerville »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #34
DINKDINK wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hillary Clinton had a >70% of winning the US presidential election Probabilities without confidence intervals[1] are by-and-large meaningless (She has a 90% chance of of winning with a confidence interval of +11% -100%). No amount of d3.js on 538's blog will change this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_interval

From a Bayesian perspective, or from a betting one, it doesn't make sense to put probabilities in a confidence interval. You might be uncertain about the world, but you can be certain about how much uncertainty you have, since it's a property of your own mind.

This is worth emphasizing. If you have a model with a parameter that represents the probability of something happening, and then you have uncertainty in that parameter, your real probability needs to integrate over that uncertainty.

But the final probability is still just a single number.

But I suspect the GP's reasoning was getting interference from the valid point that poll numbers, which are not probabilities, are meaningless without confidence intervals or some other measure of uncertainty.

That uncertainty will then feed, via some model, into a probability estimate of a candidate winning. And that's just a single number.

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