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Welcome to Understanding Uncertainty
Posted November 29th, 2007 by david
Welcome to the site that tries to make sense of chance, risk, luck, uncertainty and probability. Mathematics won't tell us what to do, but we think that understanding the numbers can help us deal with our own uncertainty and allow us to look critically at stories in the media.
- The UK Meteorological Office has put up a questionnaire on different ways of communicating uncertainty in short-term weather forecasts. I know which ones I prefer, but won't try and influence anyone [this site may go down temporarily, but should be available by Friday 15th January]
- This year's Darwin lecture series in Cambridge is on Risk: 8 speakers on all aspects, starting on January 15th.
- There is an excellent blog from the Genetic Geneologist (Blaine Bettinger) that very generously puts up details of their increased risk of Type 2 diabetes obtained from genome scans from two companies using a variety of communication formats.
- We're supporting an exciting schools programme led by Nadia Baker of the Millennium Mathematics Project called What are the Odds? - the Hands on Risk and Probability Show. Follow the link for more information and to find out how to get your school involved.
- Venturing into video one late Summer day, we pointed a couple of cameras at David delivering a dozen short talks on the issues explored in our animations. As we edit these, we're releasing them on the undunc channel on YouTube - about once a week. Do have a look and subscribe to the channel.
There will be a lot more things appearing - see About Us.
Monkeys and Shakespeare
Posted February 11th, 2010 by david
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I was lucky enough to get included in the Horizon programme on Infinity last night, talking about the old monkey-Shakespeare issue. Of course most of my rambling contribution was (rightly) cut, so here’s a few background details for anyone interested.
The risks of Eggstasy
Posted February 4th, 2010 by david
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There has been extensive coverage of a box of 6 eggs found to be all double-yoked:an event that was given odds of a trillion to 1 against. This was based on the British Egg Information Service saying 0.1% ( 1 in 1000) eggs were double-yoked, and so getting six of these required these odds to be multiplied 6 times. In fact this gives 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, but which was reported as a trillion (now usually taken as 1,000,000,000,000).
The Daily Mail did a good demolition of this story, and it is a good example of what can go wrong when people try and work out chances.
Slightly embarrassing video
Posted December 15th, 2009 by david
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A video has gone on Youtube called Professor Risk as part of a series made for the Cambridge 800 years anniversary. To be honest it's a bit lightweight when it comes to risk, and all the subtle bits got cut. We filmed a whole lot more including my GP taking my blood, discussing statins and screening for prostate cancer.
Can you rank hospitals like football teams?
Posted December 6th, 2009 by david
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Elsewhere on this site we talk about the difficulties in making reliable rankings of footbal teams, but at least people can agree that winning matches is a reasonable way to measure the quality of a team. Hospitals are different - even something 'obvious' such as mortality statistics may not be the best way to asses patient safety. This is an article that appeared in the Times on December 2nd, with suitable links added.
Ecstasy and equasy, heroin and hang-gliding
Posted November 5th, 2009 by david
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This appeared in the Times on November 3rd and is based on the excellent lecture that got David Nutt sacked as chair of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (although he might still be in post if he had only added that it was delivered in his personal capacity). Nutt has suffered the consequences of repeatedly breaking the taboo of comparing the risks of the legal and wholesome (horse-riding) or long-established (alcohol and smoking), with the illegal and "impure" Ecstasy and cannabis.
The version below contains links to sources and a few comments and corrections.
What are the chances of successful fertility treatment?
Posted October 21st, 2009 by david
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) recently launched their ‘Choose a Fertility Clinic’ website which provides a huge range of information about each clinic licenced by the HFEA, with a lot of fairly complex statistics. The website carefully avoids direct comparisons and any hint of a ‘league table’, but here we look at whether we can draw statistically-valid conclusions about whether some clinics, for whatever reason, really do provide higher chances of success than others.
What's the chance you've slept with a celebrity?
Posted September 28th, 2009 by david
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“Brits three romps from celeb sex” headlined the Sun on Friday, adding that “boffins at Cambridge University have calculated every person in the UK is linked to a star through their sexual partners — with just three steps separating the average person from a steamy celeb romp”.
Some recent coverage
Posted August 20th, 2009 by david
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Random events tend to cluster, and just to illustrate this we've suddenly got a burst of coverage of our work:
