Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Recent Milestones
- 3 An Overview of Quantitative Policy Analysis
- 4 The Nature and Sources of Uncertainty
- 5 Probability Distributions and Statistical Estimation
- 6 Human Judgment about and with Uncertainty
- 7 Performing Probability Assessment
- 8 The Propagation and Analysis of Uncertainty
- 9 The Graphic Communication of Uncertainty
- 10 Analytical A Software Tool for Uncertainty Analysis and Model Communication
- 11 Large and Complex Models
- 12 The Value of Knowing How Little You Know
- Index
7 - Performing Probability Assessment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Recent Milestones
- 3 An Overview of Quantitative Policy Analysis
- 4 The Nature and Sources of Uncertainty
- 5 Probability Distributions and Statistical Estimation
- 6 Human Judgment about and with Uncertainty
- 7 Performing Probability Assessment
- 8 The Propagation and Analysis of Uncertainty
- 9 The Graphic Communication of Uncertainty
- 10 Analytical A Software Tool for Uncertainty Analysis and Model Communication
- 11 Large and Complex Models
- 12 The Value of Knowing How Little You Know
- Index
Summary
“It sounded quite a sensible voice, but it just said, “Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling,” and that was all.
Ford skidded down a beam of light and spun around but could see nothing he could seriously believe in.
“What was that voice?” shouted Arthur.
“I don't know,” yelled Ford, “I don't know. It sounded like a measurement of probability.”
“Probability? What do you mean?”
“Probability. You know, like two to one, three to one, five to four against. It said two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against. That's pretty improbable, you know.”
A million-gallon vat of custard upended itself over them without warning.
“But what does it mean?” cried Arthur.
“What, the custard?”
“No, the measurement of improbability?'
“I don't know. I don't know at all.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Harmony Books, New YorkThe preceding chapter has clearly indicated that understanding of human judgment under uncertainty is still very incomplete. Although it is possible to identify some things one should and should not do in eliciting subjective expert judgments, many aspects of the design of an elicitation protocol must be dealt with as a matter of judgment and taste. In order to give readers some appreciation of the range of approaches that analysts have adopted, we begin with a farily detailed description of elicitation procedures that have been developed and used by three different groups working in somewhat different contexts.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- UncertaintyA Guide to Dealing with Uncertainty in Quantitative Risk and Policy Analysis, pp. 141 - 171Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
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