To clarify a little on candidate 1. People are often impressed by a coincidental or unlikely happening, and think that it’s some kind of miracle. But in fact there are a lot of individually very unlikely things happening all the time. Out of all the cars in the world, what’s the chance that you happen to see three of them in a particular order going down a particular street? Not that high, but obviously cars have to pass you in some order or other.
So all unlikely events can be categorised into unnoticable ones (any three cars at random), and noticable ones (your mum, your music teacher, and somebody you haven’t seen for ten years all pass you in order.) You then calculate the odds of that particular unlikely thing happening, and discover it’s pretty unlikely. The thing most people don’t take into account is that there are a LOT of potential noticable events, and there are a LOT of possible moments when they could happen. Any particular unlikely happening is pretty unlikely, but the likelihood of one of the many noticable unlikely happenings occurring is much greater.
This accords with our experience that noticable unlikely events do actually occur. But there’s nothing unlikely about that fact.
“one in a million chances happen a thousand times a day in China” is a bumper sticker phrase for that one I’ve found useful.
On my own, I’ve tried out the ol’ medical test base rate fallacy explanation on a few people. My dad got it right away; so did one friend; another didn’t seem to fully grok it within ~2 minutes of explanation. I haven’t done any follow-ups to see if they’ve been able to retain and use the concept.
To clarify a little on candidate 1. People are often impressed by a coincidental or unlikely happening, and think that it’s some kind of miracle. But in fact there are a lot of individually very unlikely things happening all the time. Out of all the cars in the world, what’s the chance that you happen to see three of them in a particular order going down a particular street? Not that high, but obviously cars have to pass you in some order or other.
So all unlikely events can be categorised into unnoticable ones (any three cars at random), and noticable ones (your mum, your music teacher, and somebody you haven’t seen for ten years all pass you in order.) You then calculate the odds of that particular unlikely thing happening, and discover it’s pretty unlikely. The thing most people don’t take into account is that there are a LOT of potential noticable events, and there are a LOT of possible moments when they could happen. Any particular unlikely happening is pretty unlikely, but the likelihood of one of the many noticable unlikely happenings occurring is much greater.
This accords with our experience that noticable unlikely events do actually occur. But there’s nothing unlikely about that fact.
“one in a million chances happen a thousand times a day in China” is a bumper sticker phrase for that one I’ve found useful.
On my own, I’ve tried out the ol’ medical test base rate fallacy explanation on a few people. My dad got it right away; so did one friend; another didn’t seem to fully grok it within ~2 minutes of explanation. I haven’t done any follow-ups to see if they’ve been able to retain and use the concept.