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Welcome to Understanding Uncertainty

david's picture
Submitted by david on Thu, 09/23/2010 - 15:50

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.

'Tails you win: the science of chance' aired on BBC4 at 9pm on October 18th. The video trailer is up on Youtube

If you want to see where all the numbers came from in the programme, we've prepared a page of all the gory details.

Do you have a coincidence story? David Spiegelhalter is collecting them over at http://cambridgecoincidences.org.

Elsewhere on UnderstandingUncertainty:

About Us

mike's picture
Submitted by mike on Tue, 04/29/2008 - 15:09

What is this site?

This site is produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim is to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining! However we also acknowledge that uncertainty is not just a matter of working out numerical chances, and aim for an appropriate balance between qualitative and quantitative insights.

Future Plans

Horace's picture
Submitted by Horace on Thu, 11/29/2007 - 14:59

Future plans for web-site (june 2008)

  • Regular updates / RSS feed
  • Encourage contributions on topics such as climate change and electromagnetic fields
  • 'Novelty’ features: eg Poetry corner, quotes
  • Use narrative as much as possible - story-based
  • Contribute to Wikipedia when ready, also get linked from there.

Notes for Reviewers

david's picture
Submitted by david on Tue, 11/27/2007 - 17:05

This site is in an early stage of development, and we would welcome your comments on any aspect of the content and presentation. A few points you may wish to keep in mind:

Qualitative Concepts

Horace's picture
Submitted by Horace on Wed, 10/03/2007 - 14:19

These might include:

  • Precautionary principle
  • Evaluating Evidence
  • Psychology of risk behaviour
  • Neurophysiology of risk behaviour
  • Sociology of risk / Risk in society
  • Philosophy of risk
  • What is ‘probability’/ risk etc?
  • Risk communication
  • Teaching resources on risk/uncertainty

Quantitative Concepts

Horace's picture
Submitted by Horace on Wed, 10/03/2007 - 14:16

These might include:

  • Learning from data
  • Absolute and relative risks
  • Individual and ‘average’ risks
  • Bayes theorem
  • Regression-to-the-mean
  • Unexpected / rare events, coincidences
  • Trends
  • When to stop?
  • Ranking
  • Predictability

Issues

gmp26's picture
Submitted by gmp26 on Wed, 10/03/2007 - 12:34

These might include:

  1. Lifestyle
    1. Sex
    2. Drugs
    3. Smoking
    4. Alcohol
  2. Childhood
    1. Accidents
    2. Violence
    3. Obesity
  3. Healthcare
    1. NICE approvals
    2. Vaccines (MMR etc)
    3. League tables
    4. Drug Safety
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