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retired_urologist comments on Awww, a Zebra - Less Wrong
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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?
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).
It probably isn't very good advice if you're practicing medicine on the savanna though. There, if you hear hoofbeats, it's probably a zebra!