Why probability probably doesn’t exist (but it is useful to act like it does) 24
https://rdcu.be/d41qA David Spiegelhalter Life is uncertain. None of us know what is going to happen. We know little of what has happened in the past, or is happening now outside our immediate experience. Uncertainty has been called ‘the consciousness of ignorance’ – be it of the weather tomorrow, the next Premier League champions, the climate in 2100 or the identity of our ancient ancestors. In daily life, we generally say an event “could”, “might” or “is likely to” happen (or have happened). But uncertain words can be treacherous. When, in 1961, the newly elected US president John F. Kennedy was informed about a CIA-sponsored plan to invade communist Cuba, he commissioned an appraisal from his military top brass. They concluded that the mission had a 30% chance of success – that is, a 70% chance of failure. In the report that reached the president, this was rendered as “a fair chance”. The Bay of Pigs invasion went ahead, and was a fiasco. There are now established scales for convert...