Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the author
- 1 Setting the stage
- 2 Uncertain about science
- 3 Can the media help?
- 4 Unfamiliarity breeds uncertainty
- 5 Fever or chill?
- 6 A fifty–fifty chance
- 7 I'm not quite sure how this works …
- 8 Let's see what happens if …
- 9 Reconstructing the past
- 10 Predicting the future
- 11 Out of the blue
- 12 In a climate of uncertainty
- Index
6 - A fifty–fifty chance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the author
- 1 Setting the stage
- 2 Uncertain about science
- 3 Can the media help?
- 4 Unfamiliarity breeds uncertainty
- 5 Fever or chill?
- 6 A fifty–fifty chance
- 7 I'm not quite sure how this works …
- 8 Let's see what happens if …
- 9 Reconstructing the past
- 10 Predicting the future
- 11 Out of the blue
- 12 In a climate of uncertainty
- Index
Summary
This country is hungry for information; everything of a statistical character, or even a statistical appearance, is taken up with an eagerness that is almost pathetic; the community have not yet learned to be half skeptical and critical enough in respect to such statements.
Francis A. Walker, Superintendent of the 1870 US CensusThe previous chapter focused on measurements. Here we will talk more about how to extract quantitative information from a collection of measurements. The discussion will lead us into topics as diverse as flood and earthquake frequencies, election polls, and census taking. What can a poll of a small number of registered voters tell us about the likely outcome of a forthcoming election? What can we learn from the past history of flooding along a river that will give some indication of what we might expect in the future? Uncertainties are associated with each topic, uncertainties that arise from different sources and are quantified in different ways.
There are many processes and pathways that lead to ensembles of measurements. One very common source is simply making a number of measurements on a single object – each student in a class at the local elementary school measures the height of their teacher, or all seismograph stations in a region estimate the magnitude of yesterday's earthquake. A second common ensemble comprises one-time measurements of a number of different objects – perhaps the weight of each student in the class on the first morning of the new school term, or the concentration of arsenic in each water well in the county on a given day.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Uncertain Science ... Uncertain World , pp. 87 - 104Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003