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Q&A 2 construals "of 100 patients presenting with a lump like the claimant’s in Gregg v Scott, 42 will be ‘cured’ if they are treated immediately."

posted 1y ago by tommi‭ · edited 1y ago by Peter Taylor‭

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#2: Post edited by $user avatar$ Peter Taylor‭ · 2023-05-10T14:59:43Z (over 1 year ago)
I've removed the colours in the question, so to avoid confusion I'm removing references to them

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One can try to make the arguments mathematically more precise.
* The green claim is that each patient has a 42 % chance of being cured with the treatment.
* The red claim is saying there is a genetic factor that 42 % of people have, such that the conditional probability of being cured given the factor is one, while the conditional probability without the factor is zero.
The red claim assumes we know more about the disease and probably assumes that there is some way of finding out the presence of this genetic factor, but the extent to which this latter assumption is made depends on the context.
Compare with a similar argument with a coin flip: given a good enough physical model, and given that we have sufficient knowledge of the circumstances, we can calculate the result of the coin flip. (Assume for the sake of argument this to be true.) But if just want to decide which of us takes the trash out and flip a coin about it, this is entirely irrelevant, since we do not in fact have the knowledge or the computational tools to figure out which way the coin flip will land.
As to which is better, this depends on the information and resources we have and the general context. I am not familiar with common law and interpretations of probabilities and dubious claims about the treatability of diseases there.

One can try to make the arguments mathematically more precise.
* The first claim is that each patient has a 42 % chance of being cured with the treatment.
* The second claim is saying there is a genetic factor that 42 % of people have, such that the conditional probability of being cured given the factor is one, while the conditional probability without the factor is zero.
The second claim assumes we know more about the disease and probably assumes that there is some way of finding out the presence of this genetic factor, but the extent to which this latter assumption is made depends on the context.
Compare with a similar argument with a coin flip: given a good enough physical model, and given that we have sufficient knowledge of the circumstances, we can calculate the result of the coin flip. (Assume for the sake of argument this to be true.) But if just want to decide which of us takes the trash out and flip a coin about it, this is entirely irrelevant, since we do not in fact have the knowledge or the computational tools to figure out which way the coin flip will land.
As to which is better, this depends on the information and resources we have and the general context. I am not familiar with common law and interpretations of probabilities and dubious claims about the treatability of diseases there.

#1: Initial revision by $user avatar$ tommi‭ · 2023-05-10T09:23:52Z (over 1 year ago)

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One can try to make the arguments mathematically more precise.
* The green claim is that each patient has a 42 % chance of being cured with the treatment.
* The red claim is saying there is a genetic factor that 42 % of people have, such that the conditional probability of being cured given the factor is one, while the conditional probability without the factor is zero.

The red claim assumes we know more about the disease and probably assumes that there is some way of finding out the presence of this genetic factor, but the extent to which this latter assumption is made depends on the context.

Compare with a similar argument with a coin flip: given a good enough physical model, and given that we have sufficient knowledge of the circumstances, we can calculate the result of the coin flip. (Assume for the sake of argument this to be true.) But if just want to decide which of us takes the trash out and flip a coin about it, this is entirely irrelevant, since we do not in fact have the knowledge or the computational tools to figure out which way the coin flip will land.

As to which is better, this depends on the information and resources we have and the general context. I am not familiar with common law and interpretations of probabilities and dubious claims about the treatability of diseases there.

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