Excellent deconstruction of errors in critical thinking, especially in the sciences, but applicable to everything! Beware the base-rate fallacy. The ability of an imperfect test to identify a condition depends upon the likelihood of that condition occurring (the base rate). For example, a person might have a blood test that is 99% accurate for a rare disease and test positive, yet they might be unlikely to have the disease. If 10,001 people have the test, of whom just one has the disease, that person will almost certainly have a positive test, but so too will a further 100 people (1%) even though they do not have the disease. This type of calculation is valuable when considering any screening procedure, say for terrorists at airports. For anyone healthcare focused, very important to understand why no single diagnostic test result is >99% accurate.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 02:43:10 +0000
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