Probably the Best Book on Statistics Ever Written by Haim Shapira

Author:Haim Shapira
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786788542
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
Published: 2024-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

PART 2: PROBABILITY

CHAPTER 15

The World of Probabilities

According to a widely and overly cited saying by American founding father Benjamin Franklin, only two things are certain in life: death and taxes. Though amusing, the fact is that it is not the truth at all. Many people do not pay taxes: some earn sums below the income tax threshold, others cheat, and certain individuals live in taxless places (Monaco, the Bahamas). Also, not all creatures die. A small and transparent jellyfish named Turritopsis dohrnii is considered biologically immortal because it can turn back time and revert to an earlier stage in its life cycle. I know this sounds incredible, but the truth does not have to follow the rules of logic or credibility. Certain single cell organisms are also biologically eternal because as they age, they multiply by division. Hence, even taxes and death are not certain.

Nothing in this world is certain and Pliny (remember him from Chapter 2?) was right when he wrote in his Natural History that the only certainty is that nothing is certain. Things, I believe, are merely probable. This is why, no matter the issue a human being engages in or contemplates, probability will always appear – whether taking centre stage or hiding in the background. Probability may be hiding from sight, heart, or thought, but it is always there. Hard as I have so far tried not to discuss them, probabilities have impressively featured in almost every discussion of statistics in this book.

Allow me to reiterate: probability is everywhere and in every life event. For example, when we say ‘See you tomorrow’, we actually and more precisely mean ‘Bye. I believe there is high probability that we will meet again tomorrow.’ Still, I should warn you that we would be wiser to renounce precision and go for the first version. Insisting on speaking in probabilities might be followed by a summons to the district psychiatrist.

After all, even if we don’t speak in probabilities, we all know that there is a chance, albeit slim, that we might not see each other tomorrow. A psychologist friend of mine once told me that he had a patient who worried about falling asleep because he was afraid he might not wake up. It may sound strange to you, but to me it is almost logical. After all, most of us ‘lose consciousness’ each night, trusting we will regain it in a few hours.

People speak of chances and probabilities when discussing a huge variety of issues: ‘There is a good chance that London will be warmer than Tel Aviv in the coming days’; ‘Chances are very slim that I will engage in sports in the next 50 years’; ‘There is a one in six probability that our dice will show the number two’; ‘The chances of war have increased recently’; ‘The probability of his recovery is smaller than him growing a tail’; ‘Don’t bet in the casino; the odds are against you’; ‘These days, divorce is more probable than lengthy marriage’; and so on.

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