A Math-Like Sidenote...

[edrick]

On a mathematical note, I've been running into a rather funny theme quite a few times recently. It has to do with the perception of probability and how people view it and interpret the numbers to draw their conclusions. Specifically how tiny probabilites are so easily skewed when other factors are misinterpreted

Comments

[jazzhot]

haha current mood: differentiated

i wish i could contribute something intelligent to these thoughts but its 230am and math hates me even though i think its hot! oh unrequited love! heh.

17, eh? i have some thoughts in my head though that i will maybe be able to make sense of after ive had my 4 1/2 hours of sleep before work (ugh!) they are only vaguely related to this but i do love going off on tangents.

You say "probability" i say "Providence"

[benjasattva]

I will give you the rest of my two-scents post bar-exam

Re: You say "probability" i say "Providence"

[ascii_rock]

i neither know you nor is it likely i ever will, but i would like to thank you for providing the most insightful and intelligent thing i have read in quite a while.

Re: You say "probability" i say "Providence"

[edrick]

That a good friend, Ben. We have some pretty wild discussions on science or philosophy on a semi-regular basis. This discussion was continued on his journal through an entry of his, if I remember correctly.

[me_tos]

I have no doubts that most humans do not even attempt to think about grasping the concepts of (and differences between) "veryveryveryvery small chance" and "no chance". Having said that...

Responding to a side effect type-ish thing of your main argument, I think (part of?) the problem just started with the misuse of language, and grew from there.

I seem to remember a football player being quoted a while back as saying "You only get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so many times."

Yay Google. It was Ike Taylor, from the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pure, unadulterated genius, my friends. *shudder*

[ascii_rock]

A funny study recently looked back at the studies published in the past few decades and found that 2/3 of studies were inaccurate.

So then... shouldnt we assume that the study is 2/3 inaccurate? (:

seriously though... I'm taking AP probability and statistics in high school after taking probability with kelly at hcssim. it was so painful to hear "probability is the number of 'successes' over the number of possible outcomes." luckily the other day i got to give an incomplete blathering (blathering being a few steps below a lecture, which is a few steps below a discussion) about multinomial distributions and generalizing pascal's triangle to pascal's n-simplex. it made me happy.

[edrick]

Yeha...I saw the '2/3' study when it came out and got a laugh out of it...it puts alot of statistics into perspective...that it's about averages and likelihoods, not absolutes.

So the '2/3' study could possibly mean that 2/3 +/- (2/3-(2/3)^2 ) of the studies out there are incorrect, which takes into account it's own fallable nature...or that the study has a 2/3 chance of being completely wrong and irrelevant. How funny :-P

The main point of the post I made here, though, was to address the issue of probability being misused and abused for the sake of furthering misleading ideas. It is very easy to twist numbers, sa many of those inaccurate studies do, in order to create a false sense of liklihood or of impossiblity. Even one in a billion can be a very viable probability if enough trials are in the equation. I suppose much of science/math can be abused inadvertantly (or purposefully) for the sake of misleading others.