Understanding Uncertainty

Time 2020-10-15 16:04:38

Web Name: Understanding Uncertainty

WebSite: http://understandinguncertainty.org

ID:83182

Keywords:

Understanding,Uncertainty,

Description:

Welcome to the site that tries to make sense of chance, risk, luck, uncertainty and probability. Mathematics won't tell us what to do, but we think that understanding the numbers can help us deal with our own uncertainty and allow us to look critically at stories in the media. Sex by Numbers, by David Spiegelhalter, is now available for purchase!Details of reviews, interviews, (and errors) are all featured here.Do you have a coincidence story? David Spiegelhalter is collecting them over at http://cambridgecoincidences.org.Ice cream, gender and risk: How to communicate uncertainty?Safer sat nav routesPopularity measure as column heightRare comma eventsData Overload?Winter WipeoutMicrolivesDoubtful adoption leagueA Maserati for £1Cochrane visualisation When my family plans a trip to the beach in Scotland, there is always a high chance of rain. So I always pack everything: from sunscreen to waterproofs. But would I have reached the same conclusion listening to the weather forecast on the radio or when checking the weather app on my phone? And would my husband have done the same? What words are appropriate when describing the unavoidable unpredictability of real life – what we might casually call ‘chance’? In a careful study published last week, Socioeconomic position and the risk of brain tumour: a Swedish national population-based cohort study, the authors examined the association between the socio-economic status of men and women in Sweden with diagnosis of brain tumours over 18 years. One of the main findings is shown below. I’ve had a lot of publicity over the last few days, but none of it was welcome. It arose from the story below from the Daily Telegraph of June 6 with the headline “Britons are having less sex, and Game of Thrones could be to blame, says Cambridge professor” Remember all those autism stories over the last few weeks? You don’t? There’s a reason for that. Yesterday the Chief Medical Officer announced new guidelines for alcohol consumption. The Summary says,The proposed guidelines and the expert group report that underpins them, have been developed on the basis of the following principles: On Thursday November 19th the printed version of the Guardian had the headline “Experts dispute Hunt's claim on weekend hospital treatment“ [online version here]. But it was not only Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt who gave a misleading statement – the Guardian also made a serious error about statistics. The way that risks are 'framed' can make a big impression on their apparent magnitude. The controversy following the recent report by NICE on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) provides a fine example. Surgeons are increasingly subject to statistical monitoring, and named results may be made publicly available. But consider a surgeon in a low-risk specialty who has had a successful and blameless career, until a combination of circumstances, possibly beyond their control, contribute to a single patient dying. They then find they are officially labeled as an ‘outlier’ and subject to formal investigation, all because of a purely statistical criterion. Is this fair?

TAGS:Understanding Uncertainty 

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