Statistical Sciences 2037A/B Chapter 14 (continued), 17: Coincidences, The Gambler’s Fallacy & The Personal-Probability Interpretation
31 Oct 2018
School
Department
Professor
Document Summary
Coincidence: surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, with no apparent casual connection. No matter how improbable a situation may seem, someone somewhere someday will experience it or something similar. Not unlikely that something surprising will happen based on the population of the world and individual countries. Any very specific event, surprising or not, has extremely low probability; however, there are many such events, and their combined probability is quite high. Many small probabilities add up to one large probability. This is if we ask for the probability of that specific event occurring at that time to us. Should ask the probability if it happening at some time to someone- probability will be large. What"s not improbable is that something improbable will happen to each of us once in a while. The gambler"s fallacy: people think the long-run frequency of an event should apply even in the short run. Misperception about random events being that they should be self-correcting.
