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18th August 2008, 01:59 AM | #1 |
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How do you handle probabilistic knowledge?
No events in life have a probability of 0 or 1 of occurring. Statistical information is rarely available about us as individuals, so we have to rely on averages of groups and assume we share many of the significant characteristics of a particular group if we wish to use the data in our decisions.
What behaviours (if any) do you engage in where you expect to beat the odds? Is this an irrational way to behave? |
18th August 2008, 03:04 AM | #2 |
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Due to my crippling fear of any kind of injury, I used to stay in bed with the covers over my head. Then I heard that most accidents happen within one mile of your home, so I wander the streets 24x7, sleeping in doorways. That way, I'll never be hurt and will probably live forever.
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18th August 2008, 03:04 AM | #3 |
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18th August 2008, 03:29 AM | #4 |
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Here's some info. on speed and accidents.
http://www.erso.eu/knowledge/content...oad_safety.htm One particularly interesting bit:
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18th August 2008, 03:47 AM | #5 |
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Can people with more driving experience and/or higher performance (i.e. better braking) vehicles drive faster than average without increasing their risk above the group?
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18th August 2008, 03:52 AM | #6 |
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Maybe some can, but it shouldn't be down to an individual to decide whether they are in that group. Many people think they are more skilled than they are.
http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf |
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18th August 2008, 04:21 AM | #7 |
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18th August 2008, 04:28 AM | #8 |
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That is similar to the Lake Wobegon Effect. http://changingminds.org/explanation...e_woebegon.htm
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18th August 2008, 04:46 AM | #9 |
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18th August 2008, 04:55 AM | #10 |
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Yeah, it appeals to both my natural tightness and provides an alternative (and no doubt less risky) game to minimising journey time. I now regularly average 60mpg. I've yet to figure out if I save more fuel by free-wheeling down hills or using the engine to brake the acceleration.
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18th August 2008, 05:08 AM | #11 |
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18th August 2008, 05:35 AM | #12 |
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Odds are, we will all die some day. So, I recommend against life of any sort, as it always seems to end badly.
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18th August 2008, 06:42 AM | #13 |
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An interesting article in wiki on risk perception:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_perception
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18th August 2008, 09:17 AM | #14 |
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For some people, yes; for others, no.
I'm specifically thinking about Puthoff and Targ, who would write down all the ways they could think of that their paranormal experiment could be confounded by a cheating subject... and then do nothing to mitigate it. They felt that by merely being 'aware of' the problem, they had eliminated it as a factor. |
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18th August 2008, 09:39 AM | #15 |
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18th August 2008, 09:45 AM | #16 |
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18th August 2008, 10:15 AM | #17 |
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It's much safer to try to match the speed of traffic than to drive the speed limit (assuming there is traffic). I would like to do that, but the usual traffic speed here is 15-20 mph over the limit, and I'm not comfortable knowing I could get a speeding ticket at any time, so I usually drive 5-10 over. I'm sure that increases the chance of my having an accident quite a bit, since cars are constantly tailgating and swerving around me. Driving at the speed limit would be much more dangerous, since there would be many more cars tailgating and swerving around, and many of those drivers would be steaming.
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18th August 2008, 10:19 AM | #18 |
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18th August 2008, 10:22 AM | #19 |
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According to what I've read, extrapolating from the group (nomothetic) to the individual (idiographic) is one of the most frequently committed logical fallacies, although the sources I've read may not be the final word on this argument. I guess we have to use something as a guide. Regarding relying on statistics of central tendency, I always think about Stephen J. Gould's essay The Median Isn't the Message; these numbers alone can be way off for us individually, and averages can be heavily influenced by outliers (e.g., in skewed distributions).
Another factor to consider alongside the actual mean or median or mode is the variability about those values in the distribution as a whole. Puts a nice backdrop to the statistical picture that we can consider. Lastly, carefully crafted and conducted single-n (case) studies can actually be more helpful than many people think when lots of them are done and when the proper methodology is employed (repeated measures, time-series designs; see Single Case Experimental Designs by Barlow, Nock, & Hersen). Although it will never be spot-on, if an individual constellation of variables very closely approximates your own, there may be some value to using it as a predictive tool in limited cases. This is especially true in psychotherapy research, where certain single-n study clusters have been shown to be excellent in gauging treatment efficacy and underlying mechanisms of action. Information does and can get lost when you lump heterogeneous groups of people together. |
18th August 2008, 10:25 AM | #20 |
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18th August 2008, 01:21 PM | #21 |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Theory_of_risk
So which best describes you: Individualist, Egalitarian, Hierarchist, Fatalist or Autonomous? Personally, I think I'm pretty evenly spread between |
Last edited by Ivor the Engineer; 18th August 2008 at 01:48 PM. Reason: Egalitarian!? What was I thinking when I typed that? |
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19th August 2008, 02:00 AM | #22 |
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Here's a couple of pages which describe how we struggle to comprehend probabilistic information and gives some examples of ways of presenting it which may make such information easier or more difficult to grasp.
http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandoli...28/b128-6.html
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