Interactive discussion on risk, chance, and the illusion of certainty

A couple of weeks ago, I was supposed to be a live commentator for the World Science Festival panel "The Illusion of Certainty: Risk, Probability, and Chance." Ironically, there were technical issues and the event got rescheduled. Today, we're giving it another go. Starting at 2:00 Eastern today, you can join mathematician Amir Aczel and me in the chat room while we watch the panel (recorded June 2nd) together. We'll add commentary. We'll try to answer your questions. In general, we'll turn a video into a conversation. Hope you can join us!

Stuff happens. The weather forecast says it's sunny, but you just got drenched. You got a flu shot--but you're sick in bed with the flu. Your best friend from Boston met your other best friend from San Francisco. Coincidentally. What are the odds? Risk, probability, chance, coincidence--they play a significant role in the way we make decisions about health, education, relationships, and money. But where does this data come from and what does it really mean? How does the brain find patterns and where can these patterns take us? When should we ditch the data and go with our gut? Join us in a captivating discussion that will demystify the chancy side of life.

• [Mujokan]

  There’s this term of Richard Dawkins’ called the PETWHAC: the population of events that would have appeared coincidental. It’s worth looking into when trying to understand why coincidences seem so common.

• [Jacqvb29]

  Besides the odds being incomprehensible for some people, most people (yes, me too, and you probably also (95% certainty ) aren’t aware of other processes influencing our perception on decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty.

  If you are interested: This topic is mostly researched by behavioral economists or economical psychologists (or they experiment together in the rare occasion of professional respect)
  A good starting point and introduction is Kahneman & Tversky (prospect theory) Won the nobel prize!

• [fraac]

  The odds of anything happening are either 50/50 or one million to one against. You just have to know which.

• [AnthonyC]

  I haven’t had a chance to watch any of this yet. But, what’s interesting to me is how we casually throw around odds: “99% sure,” “million to one,” and various probability words, without ever really thinking about how imprecise our brains are at these things. Like the studies showing that doctors do very badly when asked to estimate, given some data, the odds that a woman has breast cancer given that they saw something on a mammogram- three are referenced here: http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes

  In most contexts this is no big deal, or course. But when we *do* need to be precise with odds- in a hospital, or a murder trial, or a policy debate on global warming or nuclear power or whether someone has a dangerous weapons program- we tend to carry over our predisposition to not reason correctly. One result is that much of the population simply refuses to believe what the experts say the odds are, or doesn’t understand what they mean, or thinks that when two experts disagree they both have equal claim to validity, or that disagreeing about the probability of a tsunami is like disagreeing about what the price of a cheese should be. Add in the common perception that innumeracy is totally acceptable, while numeracy still carries some stigma, and… well, the odds don’t look good :-)

  • [g0d5m15t4k3]

    Ack! You READ that? In its entirety?

    • [AnthonyC]

      Absolutely, though I already knew the mathematical part about Bayes’ theorem (not so much the real life implications).

      I really, very strongly recommend you check out this blog
      http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences

      I have no affiliation with them whatsoever, but if you want to learn to think more rationally and understand the biases present in human thought, it’s an excellent resource. Mind-expanding, really, and generally written with practical examples and applications in mind.