TY - JOUR
AU - Matthews, Robert
AB - PERSPECTIVES Bad stats A regular series exploring slip-ups, snafus and salutary lessons from the world of statistics A statistical fallacy of seismic importance middle-aged woman attends a routine familiar “gotcha!” question about probability. do that requires knowledge of the base rate, breast cancer screening. She has no It’s the textbook example of the so-called the general prevalence of whatever is being A known risk factors but when the result base-rate fallacy, a notorious trap awaiting tested for. comes back she’s shocked to learn it’s positive. anyone trying to make sense of diagnostic In the case of the cancer test, calculating So, what are the chances she really does have tests. Warnings about its ability to lead the odds that a positive test really does imply breast cancer: 75%, 85% – or higher still? people into making faulty judgements date cancer depends on knowing three numbers: Confronted with this question, many people back at least to the mid-1950s, and it came to the chances that the test gives false alarms may think of the amazing abilities of medical prominence following experimental studies and misses genuine cases, and the base rate, technology and guess somewhere around of its impact by psychologists 
TI - Bad stats: A regular series exploring slip-ups, snafus and salutary lessons from the world of statistics
JO - Significance
DO - 10.1093/jrssig/qmaf044
DA - 2025-05-27
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/bad-stats-a-regular-series-exploring-slip-ups-snafus-and-salutary-Kyv0gkr5g2
SP - 41
EP - 44
VL - 22
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -