You're sitting in the doctor's office waiting for the result of a test. The test will tell you whether you have a disease you really don't want to have. As you wait, it seems as if the whole world is ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Writes about the future of finance and technology, follow for more. Joint probability teaches us to calculate combined outcomes.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...

In the ever-evolving toolkit of statistical analysis techniques, Bayesian statistics has emerged as a popular and powerful methodology for making decisions from data in the applied sciences. Bayesian ...

Chris Wiggins, an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University, offers this explanation. A patient goes to see a doctor. The doctor performs a test with 99 percent ...

"Yes or no: was there once life on Mars?" I can't say. "What about intelligent life?"' That seems most unlikely, but again, I can't really say. The simple yes-or-no framework has no place for shadings ...

It’s estimated that human adults make about 35,000 decisions a day — the percentage of good decisions depends on the adult. These choices can be as banal as deciding to roll or crumple toilet paper or ...