Posted on by Fraser Cain

Astronomy Cast Ep. 436: Common Misconceptions in Probability

Common Misconceptions in Probability

Human beings are bad at many things, but we’re particularly terrible at understanding probability in a rational way. We underestimate, overestimate and generally mess up probability. We’ll try to fix it here, but we’ll surely fail.

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Posted on by Fraser Cain

Astronomy Cast Ep. 390: Occam’s Razor and the Problem with Probabilities

I’m not saying it’s aliens, but it’s aliens. Actually, it’s almost certainly not aliens, or a wormhole, or a multiverse. When scientists discover something unusual, they make guesses about what’s happening. But Occam’s Razor encourages us to consider the probabilities of different events before making any concrete predictions.

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