jkaufman comments on Awww, a Zebra - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 October 2008 01:28AM

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Comment author: retired_urologist 01 October 2008 01:10:03PM 1 point [-]

In medicine, the concept "zebra" represents a strange, unlikely condition or diagnosis, usually to be avoided or considered on a lower tier, iterated thus: When one hears hoofbeats, one should think of horses rather than zebras. Spending too much time chasing zebras detracts from making the diagnosis of "horse". Coincidence? Or just another example of the medical field's poor thought process?

Comment author: jkaufman 10 November 2010 05:28:17PM 9 points [-]

The medical advice you're relating sounds quite reasonable. It's saying to consider base rates when making a diagnosis. If P(hoofbeats|horse) is the same as P(hoofbeats|zebra) but P(horse) >> P(zebra), then P(horse|hoofbeats) >> P(zebra|hoofbeats).