Science

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Why probability probably doesn’t exist (but it is useful to act like it does) (www.nature.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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All of statistics and much of science depends on probability — an astonishing achievement, considering no one’s really sure what it is.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

“What is the probability of flipping tails on a coin?”

50%

“What if I told you that the coin had two heads! Gotcha!”

Then the probability of tails would be 0%, and you’d be an arsehole.

[–] pdxfed 4 points 1 day ago

Yeah, the more I read the less impressed I was--though I'm always willing to accept the probability I'm not smart enough to grasp an author's idea. Seems like a subject that may have run its course in reasonable analysis and this is all that is left to scrabble about in for ideas.