Session 1 | Inferential Statistics and Research Questions Flashcards
(8 cards)
What is a base rate? What is then base rate fallacy?
Base rate is the probability of something happening. While the base rate fallacy is when we ignore the size of the event we are looking at which automatically portrays the event incorrectly.
Eg. More vaccinated people are in the hospital compared to not vax. But proportionally vaccinated people are more, so it is not correct for us to look only at the quantity of people but at their weight.
Generally happens when you focus too much on the specificity of one detail.
What is the difference of inferential statistics and descriptive statistics?
Descriptive statistics: based on past facts and simple visualization.
Inferential statistics: based on a sample and probability theory attempts to describe universally certain phenomenons. (forecasting)
What is the Black Swan problem? What does it teach us about probability?
Even if we sample a very large quantity of white swans we can never state that all swans are white since we cannot eliminate the possibility of another swan being black.
What is the principle of falsification?
The principle of falsification states that we cannot state that something is always true but we can prove that it is not true. This means that we don’t know how something develops until we prove that something does NOT develop in a certain way.
What are the three Axioms by Kolmogorow?
1) Probabilities are never negative > they are always between 0 or 1.
2) The probability that something happens in the sample space is equal to 100%> something has to happen.
3) If two events are DISJOINT, then their probability equals their sum (prob1 + prob2).
What is the definition of probability according to Laplace?
number of successful cases / number of all cases
What are the preconditions for a the probability formula to make sense according to Laplace?
- all outcomes have to be equally likely
- finite number of outcomes
