IAWYC (I think my original statement is wrong), but I disagree on there being no difference in ‘accurate’ and ‘inaccurate’ probabilities.
In my mind there’s a big difference between a probability where you have one step between the data and your probability(such as a lottery or a coin flip), and a case where you have multiple, fuzzy inferential steps (such as an estimation of the longevity of the human race). The more you have to extrapolate out and fill in the gaps where you don’t have data, the more room there is for error to creep in.
For things in the realm of ‘things that will happen in the far future’, it’s not clear to me that a probability you assign to something will be anything but speculation, and as such I’d assign any probability (no matter what it is) for that type of event a rather low accuracy.
This raises the question of whether it’s worth it at all to assign probabilities to these kinds of events where there are too many unknown (and unknown unknown) factors influencing them. (and if I’m terribly misunderstanding something, please let me know.)
IAWYC (I think my original statement is wrong), but I disagree on there being no difference in ‘accurate’ and ‘inaccurate’ probabilities.
In my mind there’s a big difference between a probability where you have one step between the data and your probability(such as a lottery or a coin flip), and a case where you have multiple, fuzzy inferential steps (such as an estimation of the longevity of the human race). The more you have to extrapolate out and fill in the gaps where you don’t have data, the more room there is for error to creep in.
For things in the realm of ‘things that will happen in the far future’, it’s not clear to me that a probability you assign to something will be anything but speculation, and as such I’d assign any probability (no matter what it is) for that type of event a rather low accuracy.
This raises the question of whether it’s worth it at all to assign probabilities to these kinds of events where there are too many unknown (and unknown unknown) factors influencing them. (and if I’m terribly misunderstanding something, please let me know.)