I think I’m most interested in the last question I posed: as a conversational default when I’m not interested in diving into models and computations, should I share all the digits or as many as my confidence allows?
I think you should share more digits. I sometimes say 33.5%, and experience it as meaningfully different from 34% or 33%.
This is obviously exacerbated around the ends of the probability spectrum. I.e. there is a massive difference between 99% and 99.5%, and it seems very important to feel comfortable distinguishing between them.
When I say 2 digits I mean 2 sig figs, so e.g. 0.05% is one digit. I think if you’re reporting a probability near 99% it makes sense to report 1 minus that probability, to 2 (or 3, or more if you have them) sig figs.
I think I’m most interested in the last question I posed: as a conversational default when I’m not interested in diving into models and computations, should I share all the digits or as many as my confidence allows?
I think you should share 2 digits.
I think you should share more digits. I sometimes say 33.5%, and experience it as meaningfully different from 34% or 33%.
This is obviously exacerbated around the ends of the probability spectrum. I.e. there is a massive difference between 99% and 99.5%, and it seems very important to feel comfortable distinguishing between them.
That’s fair.
When I say 2 digits I mean 2 sig figs, so e.g. 0.05% is one digit. I think if you’re reporting a probability near 99% it makes sense to report 1 minus that probability, to 2 (or 3, or more if you have them) sig figs.