Understanding Uncertainty Lindley
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Understanding Uncertainty
Author: Dennis V. Lindley
language: en
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Release Date: 2006-08-28
A lively and informal introduction to the role of uncertainty and probability in people's lives from an everyday perspective From television game shows and gambling techniques to weather forecasting and the financial markets, virtually every aspect of modern life involves situations in which the outcomes are uncertain and of varying qualities. But as noted statistician Dennis Lindley writes in this distinctive text, "We want you to face up to uncertainty, not hide it away under false concepts, but to understand it and, moreover, to use the recent discoveries so that you can act in the face of uncertainty more sensibly than would have been possible without the skill." Accessibly written at an elementary level, this outstanding text examines uncertainty in various everyday situations and introduces readers to three rules--craftily laid out in the book--that prove uncertainty can be handled with as much confidence as ordinary logic. Combining a concept of utility with probability, the book insightfully demonstrates how uncertainty can be measured and used in everyday life, especially in decision-making and science. With a focus on understanding and using probability calculations, Understanding Uncertainty demystifies probability and: * Explains in straightforward detail the logic of uncertainty, its truths, and its falsehoods * Explores what has been learned in the twentieth century about uncertainty * Provides a logical, sensible method for acting in the face of uncertainty * Presents vignettes of great discoveries made in the twentieth century * Shows readers how to discern if another person--whether a lawyer, politician, scientist, or journalist--is talking sense, posing the right questions, or obtaining sound answers Requiring only a basic understanding of mathematical concepts and operations, Understanding Uncertainty is useful as a text for all students who have probability or statistics as part of their course, even at the most introductory level.
Understanding Uncertainty
Praise for the First Edition "...a reference for everyone who is interested in knowing and handling uncertainty." —Journal of Applied Statistics The critically acclaimed First Edition of Understanding Uncertainty provided a study of uncertainty addressed to scholars in all fields, showing that uncertainty could be measured by probability, and that probability obeyed three basic rules that enabled uncertainty to be handled sensibly in everyday life. These ideas were extended to embrace the scientific method and to show how decisions, containing an uncertain element, could be rationally made. Featuring new material, the Revised Edition remains the go-to guide for uncertainty and decision making, providing further applications at an accessible level including: A critical study of transitivity, a basic concept in probability A discussion of how the failure of the financial sector to use the proper approach to uncertainty may have contributed to the recent recession A consideration of betting, showing that a bookmaker's odds are not expressions of probability Applications of the book’s thesis to statistics A demonstration that some techniques currently popular in statistics, like significance tests, may be unsound, even seriously misleading, because they violate the rules of probability Understanding Uncertainty, Revised Edition is ideal for students studying probability or statistics and for anyone interested in one of the most fascinating and vibrant fields of study in contemporary science and mathematics.
The Geography of Uncertainty
This book outlines the characteristics and implications of a potential geography of uncertainty. In doing so, it analyses this concept in reference to both the origins of uncertainty in Early Modern Age and the current geopolitical situation. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to uncertainty, drawing on global perspectives and literature to define its meanings and characteristics. In order to develop a thorough and precise understanding of the geography of uncertainty, a broad perspective is adopted, which includes other forms of knowledge in which the concept of uncertainty is firmly established. As such the book creates temporal links, that may occasionally be far off from one another, to present a geographical perspective of uncertainty. It provides an interpretation of the phenomenon of globalization in a new way, relating it to the first European openness to global spaces, the Early Modern Age, and identifying the transition from the medieval world to the Modern Age as the first manifestation of uncertainty in geography. Uncertainty is more prevalent than ever in today's geopolitical, economic, financial and social reality, as well as the ongoing emergencies and crises. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach rooted in the geography of Early Modernity by referring to geopolitical scenarios, literature and philosophy, to target the historical roots and the prevailing configuration of the geography of uncertainty. It will appeal to scholars and students of human and political geography, politics, philosophy, international relations, economics and history.