Nature permits us to calculate only probabilities Feynman, R. P. (1985). QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
A case of fraud occurred in 2015 Reardon, S. (2015, July 1). US vaccine researcher sentenced to prison for fraud. Nature, 523, p. 138.
controversy about whether the measles, mumps, and rubella MMR vaccine causes autism Wakefield, A. J., et al. (1998, Feb. 28). RETRACTED: Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet, 351(9103), 637–641. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(97)11096-0/abstract.
Burns, J. F. (2010, May 25). British medical council bars doctor who linked vaccine with autism. New York Times, p. A4. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/health/policy/25autism.html.
Associated Press (2011, Jan. 6). Study linking vaccine to autism is called fraud. New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E7DC1E3BF935A35752C0A9679D8B63.
Rao, T. S., & Andrade, C. (2011). The MMR vaccine and autism: sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 53(2), 95–96.
For example, Holmes concludes that From Thompson, S. (2010). The blind banker. Sherlock (TV series, first aired October 31, 2010).
The germ theory of disease I first learned about this story from Hempel, C. (1966). Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
To fill out the rest of the table I’m using the 168-hour week (7 days × 24 hours a day) to account for thoughts you might have while dreaming, and people who might call and wake you from a sound sleep. Of course, one could subtract out eight hours of sleep per night (or whatever) and then use only the 112 hours of wakefulness to come up with a different probability, but it doesn’t change the conclusion.
less safe mode of travel In retrospect this switch was foolish, at the time, but it may have been the rational thing to do. Four hijacked, suicide planes at once was unprecedented in aviation history. When confronted with a big change in the world, often the best thing to do is to think Bayesian: update your understanding, stop relying on the old statistics, and seek alternatives.
conclude that air travel Based on Huff, op. cit., p. 79.
There were not nearly as many flights in 1960 See, for example, Iolan, C., Patterson, T., & Johnson, A. (2014, July 28). Is 2014 the deadliest year for flights? Not even close. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/07/travel/aviation-data/; and Evershed, N. (2015, March 24). Aircraft accident rates at historic low despite high-profile plane crashes. Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2014/dec/29/aircraft-accident-rates-at-historic-low-despite-high-profile-plane-crashes.
An FBI page reports that http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/clearances.
All home robberies in a neighborhood Image from http://www.clipartof.com/portfolio/bestvector/illustration/retro-black-and-white-criminal-carrying-a-flashlight-and-box-210461.html.
In a famous psychology experiment Nisbett, R. E., & Valins, S. (1972). Perceiving the causes of one’s own behavior. In Kanouse, D. E., et al., eds. Attribution: perceiving the causes of behavior. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press, pp. 63–78.
And, Valins, S. (2007). Persistent effects of information about internal reactions: ineffectiveness of debriefing. In London, H., & Nisbett, R. E., eds. Thought and Feeling: the cognitive alteration of feeling states. Chicago, IL: Aldine Transaction.
Between 1990 and 2010, six times as many What is causing the increase in autism prevalence. Autism Speaks Official Blog, Oct. 22, 2010. http://blog.autismspeaks.org/2010/10/22/got-questions-answers-to-your-questions-from-the-autism-speaks%E2%80%99-science-staff-2/.
The majority of the rise Ibid.
the Internet to guide your thinking on why autism Suresh, A. (2015, Oct. 13). Autism increase mystery solved: no, it’s not vaccines, GMOs, glyphosate—or organic foods. Genetic Literacy Project. http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/10/13/autism-increase-mystery-solved-no-its-not-vaccines-gmos-glyphosate-or-organic-foods/.
She also couches her argument Kase, A. (2015, May 11). MIT scientist uncovers link between glyphosate, GMOs and the autism epidemic. Reset.me. http://reset.me/story/mit-scientist-uncovers-link-between-glyphosate-gmos-and-the-autism-epidemic/.
no evidence that thimerosal was linked to autism Honda, H., Shimizu, Y., & Rutter, M. (2005). No effect of MMR withdrawal on the incidence of autism: a total population study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46(6), 572–579. http://1796kotok.com/pdfs/MMR_withdrawal.pdf, and many other sources.
Reardon, S. (2015). US vaccine researcher sentenced to prison for fraud. Nature, 523(7559), p. 138.
as we know, there are known knowns Defense.gov News Transcript: DoD News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers, United States Department of Defense (defense.gov).
We can clarify Secretary Rumsfeld’s four possibilities with a fourfold table I thank Morris Olitsky for this.
One of the cornerstone principles of forensic science Inman, K., & Rudin, N. (2002). The origin of evidence. Forensic Science International, 126(1), 11–16.
Inman, K., & Rudin, N. (2000). Principles and Practice of Criminalistics: the profession of forensic science. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Suppose a criminal breaks into the stables I’m basing this section on the discussion found in Aitken, C. G. G., & Taroni, F. (2004). Statistics and the Evaluation of Evidence for Forensic Scientists, 2nd ed. Chicester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 1–2, and using their setup and terminology.
take literally the assumption in the American legal system Aitken, C. G. G., & Taroni, F. (2004), op. cit.
the prosecutor’s fallacy Thompson, W. C.; Shumann, E. L. (1987). Interpretation of statistical evidence in criminal trials: the prosecutor’s fallacy and the defense attorney’s fallacy. Law and Human Behavior 2(3), 167–187.
The quality of the photographs is high Hasselblad.com. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11-hass.html; http://www.wired.com/2013/07/apollo-hasselblad/.
It’s been claimed that the chances of life forming on Earth Estimates include 1 × 10390. http://evolutionfaq.com/articles/probability-life. See also Dreamer, D. (2009, April 30). Calculating the odds that life could begin by chance. Science 2.0. http://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance.
In a TED talk with more than 10 million views https://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_for_17_min?language=en.
there are more than 5,000 TED-branded events Bruno Guissani, Curator of TEDGlobal Conference, personal communication, September 28, 2015.
Fox television reported his ice-block demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Em2OhvEJY.
Out of a sense of ethics Glenn Falkenstein, personal communication, October 25, 2007.
There was even a peer-reviewed paper Korbonits, M., Blaine, D., Elia, M., & Powell-Tuck, J. (2005). Refeeding David Blaine—studies after a 44-day fast. New England Journal of Medicine, 353(21), 2306–2307.
The current editor of the journal searched J. Drazen, MD, email communication, December 20, 2015.
The lead author on the article told me in an email M. Korbonits, MD, email communication, December 25, 2015.
a physician did monitor Blaine throughout the fast Jackson, J. M., et al. (2006). Macro- and micronutrient losses and nutritional status resulting from 44 days of total fasting in a non-obese man. Nutrition, 22(9), 889–897.
Blaine’s record was broken in 2012 Grenoble, R. (2012, Nov. 16). Breath-holding world record: Stig Severinsen stays under water for 22 minutes (Video), Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/breath-world-record-stig-severinsen_n_2144734.html.
An article in the Dallas Observer Liner, E. (2012, Jan. 13). Want to know how David Blaine does that stuff? (Don’t hold your breath). http://www.dallasobserver.com/arts/want-to-know-how-david-blaine-does-that-stuff-dont-hold-your-breath-7083351.
preparation for the breath holding for an article in the New York Times Tierney, J. (2008, April 22). This time, he’ll be left breathless. New York Times, p. F1.
the Oprah appearance in his blog Tierney, J. (2008). David Blaine sets breath-holding record. http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/david-blaine-sets-breath-holding-record.
Tierney writes, “I was there” John Tierney, email correspondence, January 13 and 18, 2016.
Eventually all of the elements between 1 and 118 Netburn, D. (2016, Jan. 4). It’s official: four super-heavy elements to be added to the periodic table. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-new-elements-20160104-story.html.
Here’s Harrison Prosper, describing this plot Prosper, H. B. (2012, July 10). International Society for Bayesian Analysis. http://bayesian.org/forums/news/3648.
Louis Lyons explains “The Higgs” Lyons, L. (2012, July 11). http://bayesian.org/forums/news/3648.
Although CERN officials announced in 2012 In articles on the Higgs boson, you may encounter reference to the 5-sigma standard of proof. Five-sigma refers to the level of probability that the scientists agreed upon before conducting the experiments—the chance of their misinterpreting the experiments had to have a confidence interval within five standard deviations (5-sigma), or 0.0000005 (recall earlier we talked about 95 and 99 percent confidence intervals—this is a confidence interval of 99.99995 percent). See http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/five-sigmawhats-that/.
Prosper says, “Given that the search” Prosper, H. B. (2012, July 10). http://bayesian.org/forums/news/3648.
Physicist Mads Toudal Frandsen adds (2014, Nov. 7). Maybe it wasn’t the Higgs particle after all. Phys.org. http://phys.org/news/2014-11-wasnt-higgs-particle.html.
Joseph Lykken, a physicist and director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory http://phys.org/news/2014-11-wasnt-higgs-particle.html.
as Wired writer Signe Brewster says http://www.wired.com/2015/11/physicists-are-desperate-to-be-wrong-about-the-higgs-boson/.
physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed told the New York Times Overbye, D. (2015, Dec. 16). Physicists in Europe find tantalizing hints of a mysterious new particle. New York Times, p. A16.