Unnamed comments on lessmeta - Less Wrong

6 Post author: PlaidX 22 December 2009 05:57PM

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Comment author: Cyan 22 December 2009 07:15:05PM *  1 point [-]

The standard one goes something like, "The dangerous disease itchyballitis has a frequency of 1% in the general population of men. The test for the disease has an accuracy of 95% (for both false positives and false negatives). A randomly selected dude gets tested and the result is positive. What's the probability he has the disease?"

But most people get that wrong. A correct answer is more likely when the problem is phrased in equivalent but more concrete terms as follows: "The dangerous disease itchyballitis affects 100 out of 10,000 men. The test for the disease gives the correct answer 95 times out of 100. A randomly selected dude gets tested and the result is positive. What's the chance he has the disease?"

Comment author: Unnamed 23 December 2009 03:33:47AM 4 points [-]

Or, for the approximate answer, just compare the base rate with the false positive rate (multiplying by .9something has small impacts that mostly cancel out). About 1% of people test positive due to having the disease (a bit less, actually), about 5% of people test positive because of an inaccurate test (a bit less, actually), so a person with a positive test has about a 1 in 6 chance of having the disease.