We're all going to die (sometime)

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was 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.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

lecturePast experience and probability theory can be used to check the odds of your football team winning or judge the risks of activities such as riding motorcycles, taking illegal drugs, going into hospital or just living. Things get more difficult when we don't fully understand what is going on, like early on in the swine flu epidemic, or when we are dealing with huge complexity, as in climate change. Then it can be helpful to admit what we don't know.

You need Flash Player 10 to view this video. test

Republished from Warwick University Knowledge Centre

Comments

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 21/03/2011 - 1:53pm

Thanks for posting this and other videos, its a great resource. Coming from a physics background I thought it was crazy just how many pupils (and parents/other teachers) believe that climate change is a myth, but its exactly what a social scientist would expect. p.s. there was a good short NPR show on similar lines http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124008307

Anonymous (not verified)

Wed, 23/03/2011 - 10:52am

is the satins animation available to the public? I want to try and convince my uncle on satins to give up smoking. thanks

gmp26

Wed, 23/03/2011 - 3:42pm

These 3 animations have alternative ways of displaying the risks associated with statins.
http://understandinguncertainty.org/spinning
http://understandinguncertainty.org/comparison
http://understandinguncertainty.org/balance (load > internal for satins data)