Many people think they are pretty good at basic
statistics and probability theory. So give this one some thought
…
Imagine there are two drugs, A and B,
that might help cure a problem you have and you are given the following
information. 1100 people took drug A and it helped 505 of them. And 1100 people
took drug B and it helped 195 of them. I put this in the table below along with
the percentage of people where each drug was a success. Assume you can’t take
both drugs and that neither drug has any ill effect, risk, or cost from taking
it.
Drug | Successful | Failed | percentage success
A | 505 | 595 | 46%
B | 195 | 905 | 18%
Which drug would you choose to take given this
information?
Now let me provide a little
extra information. In the study above, it turns out that for drug A, there were
100 males and it worked for 5 of them and for drug B there were 1000 males and
it worked for 100 of them. From this information, and a little subtraction, I
have filled out the two tables below.
For
males
Drug | Successful | Failed | percentage success
A | 5 | 95 | 5%
B | 100 | 900 | 10%
For
females
Drug | Successful | Failed | percentage success
A | 500 | 500 | 50%
B | 95 | 5 | 95%
Continue reading ‘How good is your basic probability theory?’ »