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re: "Half the schools are below average" - not always true
Posted on 10/1/14 at 10:37 pm to HubbaBubba
Posted on 10/1/14 at 10:37 pm to HubbaBubba
quote:
Your assertion is seriously flawed. If you have a population of 1,000,000 and the disease rate is 0.1%, then only 1000 people will get the disease. The biggest number you left out is "what percentage of the population are suspected of having the disease and are tested?" "What percentage of those tested, test negative?" "What percentage of those who test negative are falsely negative?"
Let's assume it is .15 percent being tested (1500 people). Of those, 1000 have tested positive for the disease, 15 people had a false positive and 485 tested negative. Therefore, the chance that someone who tested positive actually has the disease is 98.5%
I will say that his example is a good thought experiment to think about conditional probability; however, you bring up a good point that highlights why some preventative techniques are quite costly if we just have a blanket screening instead of using empirical evidence to narrow it down to individuals showing symptoms. Luckily, I think your example (1500 tested) is more consistent with reality. Although Tuba seems to have had difficulty seeing how theory and practice relate as evidence by his impractical hypotheticals on top of his misrepresentations.
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