Topic XI. Probabilistic Reasoning
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LEARNING GOALS
- B. CONCEPT ACQUISITION
- Because every proposition comes with a degree of uncertainty:
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EXAMPLES
- Exemplary Quotes
- Cautionary Quotes: Mistakes, Misconceptions, & Misunderstandings
- "Dr. Ryan, are you absolutely certain? We can't authorize spending hundreds of millions of dollars sending a fleet to Patagonia unless we're completely certain about the outcome."
LEARNING GOALS
- B. CONCEPT ACQUISITION
- Because every proposition comes with a degree of uncertainty:
- a. Partial and probabilistic information still has value.
- b. Back-up plans are important because no information is absolutely certain.
- c. It is important to invest in calibrating where you are more and less likely to be right, as opposed to being overinvested in being “right.”
- d. Scientific culture primarily uses a language of probabilities, not certain facts.
- e. Even correctly-done science will obtain incorrect results some of the time.
- B. CONCEPT APPLICATION
- Appropriately weigh uncertainty in decisions involving risk. Identify a reasonable threshold of confidence for a given decision.
- Recognize situations where confidence levels can high enough for risky action (e.g. sometimes confidence is high enough to bet your life or the lives of others, even without perfect certainty).
- Explain how the treatment of uncertainty in scientific work allows scientists to follow the truth, even when that means changing their minds.
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LEARNING GOALS
- C. CONCEPT APPLICATION
- Given an example in which a person updates her belief, identify the two factors that should influence her final credence level (initial credence level and strength of the evidence), and recognize that Bayes rule provides a formal specification of how to do so.