Chance Rules - An Informal Guide to Probability, Risk and Statistics

Preface to the Second Edition

Acknowledgments to the Second Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Acknowledgments to the First Edition

Contents

A Brief History of Chance

Introduction

A Brief History of Chance

What Are the Chances? Assigning Probabilities

Introduction

Using Relative Frequencies as Probabilities

The Classical Definition of Probability

Subjective Probability

Rules for Combining Probabilities

Odds

Choice and Chance; Permutations and Combinations

Introduction

Permutations and Combinations

Using Permutations and Combinations to Assign Probabilities

Tossing Coins and Having Babies

The Toss of a Coin

The Probability of a Head

Some Surprising Results About Coin Tossing

Two tosses

Four tosses

Having Babies

Rolling Dice

Rolling Dice

Shooting Craps

Waiting Times

Gambling for Fun: Lotteries and Football Pools

Introduction

National Lotteries

Football Pools

Serious Gambling: Roulette, Cards and Horse Racing

Introduction

Roulette

Playing Cards

Poker

Contract Bridge

Blackjack

Horse Racing

Balls, Birthdays and Coincidences

Introduction

Birthday Surprises

Coincidences

Conditional Probability and the Reverend Thomas Bayes

Introduction

Conditional Probability

Conditional Probabilities and Medical Practice

An Unsung Statistician

Applying Bayes’s Theorem

Back to the Courtroom

Puzzling Probabilities

Introduction

A New Neighbour

The Fabulous Prize

Theres No Such Thing as a Surprise Fire Drill

Will You Get the Correct Seat?

Finding the Right Hat

Records or Why Things Were Better When I Was Young

Choosing the Most Bubbly Secretary

The St. Petersburg Paradox

All Probabilities Are Conditional

Taking Risks

Introduction

Quantifying Risk

Risk Presentation and Risk Perception

Acceptable Risk

Statistics, Statisticians and Medicine

Introduction

Medicine-from Anecdote to Evidence

Treatments Worthless-and Worse

The Beginnings of a Rational Approach

The Clinical Trial

Vitamin C and the Common Cold

Healing Power of Prayer?

Summary

Alternative Therapies-Panaceas or Placebos?

Introduction

Acupuncture

Loosing Weight

Stopping Smoking

Homoeopathy

Warts and All

Adenoid Enlargement

Migraine

Summary

What Does the Future Hold?

Introduction

Statistical Models

Modelling Winning Times in the Men’s 1500 m in the Olympic Games

Can Statisticians or Mathematicians Predict the Market?

Chance, Chaos and Chromosomes

The Overthrow of Determinism

Chaos

Evolution, Genes and Chromosomes

Life, the Universe and Everything

Epilogue

Sources

Index