Steve Fossett and My Baye's Coincidence Theory

[David Sklansky]

The prior probabilities could easily be something like this.

1. 1 in 30,000 chance anyone would stage their disappearance.

2. Given Sklansky's insight into Fossett psychology, boost it to 1 in 10,000 chance Fossett would stage his disappearance.

3. Given that Fossett would stage his disappearance, 1 in 10,000 chance he would stage it in this particular way at this particular time.

4. So the parlay for the prior probability that Fossett was going to stage his disappearance in this rather unspectacular way, 1 in 100 million.

5. 1 in 1000 chance of Fossett's plane crashing in the flying conditions that day.

6. 1 chance in 5 the crashed plane would not be found after search to date.

So with these prior probabilities, Bayes' Theorum gives the odds against Fossett staging his disappearance with this flight at about 20,000 to 1.

Maybe the true odds are closer to 1000-1. Who knows? These prior probabilities are all guess work anyway. The better method would be to look at all the planes that have disappeared and gone unfound after considerable search. How many were later found and how many turned out to be cases of staged disappearences? Who has better access to such information? The experts who gave their opinion based on years of experience or David Sklansky stupidly applying logic and probability to his guesswork.

PairTheBoard

Firstly those who gave their opinion were NOT using this information. Secondly your method won't work in this case because the sample size is so small- Expert attention seeking aviators whose plane can't be found in a small area after a thorough search.

As for your #s 4-6

The parlay is not 10,000 times 10,000 but rather 10,000 times the number of times he does things like take off in a plane. Maybe five million.

The chances he will crash is nowhere near one in 1000. Worst case is one in 25,OOO.

I'm assuming that not finding the plane is about one in ten. That could be way off.

So that would make the final answer 20-1. IF it started out as a 10,000 to one shot that he would do something like that. I'd say its 2000-1.

BUT NONE OF THIS REALLY MATTERS. All your numbers could be right but you still seem to be missing the point. Which is that most people who supposedly have expert opinions on this sort of thing are far mor inexpert than either you or I because they don't have a clue how to adjust their probability estimates when evidence outside their particular field comes into play. Just like those poker players who when moved in on, don't adjust to games where the nuts are harder or easier to come by.

[Lestat]

It seems what you're getting at is that even experts in a particular field either forget or don't know how to apply proper math to form a given likelihood or conclusion. As a result, they sometimes make an assinine statement that is only obvious to those who do know the math. I'll certainly go along with that.

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems what you're getting at is that even experts in a particular field either forget or don't know how to apply proper math to form a given likelihood or conclusion. As a result, they sometimes make an assinine statement that is only obvious to those with basic common sense who get that you can't use math to make categorical or even ballpark probability statements when it comes to most human endeavours. I'll certainly go along with that.

[/ QUOTE ]

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
DS -
I am saying that those who gave their opinion of a staged disapperance paid almost no attention to anything but Fossett's psychology.

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And your evidence for this is ... Sklansky Intutition? Disregarding the fact that they were closely questioned and showed themselves very much aware of various factors affecting the likelihood of the crashed plane being missed by the search.

PairTheBoard

[SmokeyRidesAgain]

[ QUOTE ]
Steve Fossett faked his disapperance. The theory has been looked into and has been proclaimed extremely farfetched. But again the proclaimers are COMPLETE MORONS.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow.

[jason1990]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems what you're getting at is that even experts in a particular field either forget or don't know how to apply proper math to form a given likelihood or conclusion. As a result, they sometimes make an assinine statement that is only obvious to those who do know the math. I'll certainly go along with that.

[/ QUOTE ]
Clearly, Sklansky is saying more than that. With his offered wager, he is specifically saying:

<ul type="square">(*) The probability that Steve Fossett faked his death is greater than 9%.[/list]Also, he claims this is more than just his personal opinion on the matter. He claims it is an objective fact. He said it is "SELF EVIDENTLY right," and those who disagrees are "COMPLETE MORONS."

Before this thread fully devolves into the usual boring saga, let me point out that there is one interesting question here which is relevant to science, math, and philosophy. It was asked by luckyme:

[ QUOTE ]
What does it take in how this is presented to elevate it above, "My leg hurts, there's a good chance of a storm".

Seriously, how do we test/demonstrate this in a one case scenario?

[ QUOTE ]
The easiest way for me to prove that I am not just trying to get a freeroll is to say that I will take a 10K to 1K bet.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's the easy way to show that you are confident in your claim. How can we show that your claim is deserving of that confidence?
My granna just offered 5-1 on the basis of her ouija board . Does that add validity to her confidence?

Again, how do we get to that validation stage?

[/ QUOTE ]

[David Sklansky]

"Also, he claims this is more than just his personal opinion on the matter. He claims it is an objective fact. He said it is "SELF EVIDENTLY right," and those who disagrees are "COMPLETE MORONS.""

Everything you wrote above is not true. I'm surprised you misunderstand so completely. The morons are those who base their assessment of a stunt on psychology only. Those who use the proper math to asess all the evidence may well come to a different conclusion than me and if they have the proper expertise their opinion is better than mine. When I used the term "self evident" I was referring to the method of combining the probabilities, not the probabilities themselves. The individual probabilities, I make no claim to have better opinions about than others.

Let me simplify this for everyone:

The people that investigated Fossett's state of mind concluded that he had no reason to pull this stunt. So they pronounced the chances of it tiny. But whatever those chances were originally they are affected greatly by new evidence. Even those people would admit that a stunt was likely if a million people searched every nook and cranny and found nothing. They would probably also greatly increase their estimate if a friend came forward to say that Fossett told him that he didn't think anybody really cared about him. But what about if they were told that 95% of the land was searched thoroughly?(And that one spot of land is as likely as any other spot to contain the accident) Given that information only, they should multiply the chances of a stunt, whatever they were, by 20. And they don't. When it reaches 100% they will switch gears but until then they get confused.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
But what about if they were told that 95% of the land was searched thoroughly?(And that one spot of land is as likely as any other spot to contain the accident) Given that information only, they should multiply the chances of a stunt, whatever they were, by 20. And they don't. When it reaches 100% they will switch gears but until then they get confused.

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Clarify that. If the original chances were 95% crash, 5% stunt. It isn't the 5% that I multiply by twenty.

Every minute my daughter is late increases the chances she was abducted. - that seems a common approach.

Every day the search turns up no plane increases the chance that Fossett is pulling a stunt. or, more clearly, that there may be another explanation for his disappearance, including it being a stunt. Then again, every day the stunt isn't exposed decreases the chance it's a stunt.

In any case, people seem familiar with the general concept, is it just a misapplication of the math you're fussing over? ( such as multiplying 5% by 20 above?).

luckyme

[David Sklansky]

Yes its just a missaplication of the math I'm fussing over. But that misapplication or ignoring sometimes leads to big mistakes.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
what about if they were told that 95% of the land was searched thoroughly?(And that one spot of land is as likely as any other spot to contain the accident) Given that information only, they should multiply the chances of a stunt, whatever they were, by 20. And they don't.

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Once again, your evidence for this is ... Sklansky Psychic Abilities?

"Extremely farfetched" X 20 = ?

We also can't trust your reporting of statements by the authorities, since you provide no links, quotes, or context. The people who investigated Fossett's psychological condition may have given their report independent of other factors. It would not have been their job to confuse their evaluation of his pyschological condition with probabilities of search success. Who said what and in what context? We don't know and we can't trust Sklansky to have gotten it right.

Futhermore, you ignore the possibility that the search area is only a tiny fraction of the mulit-state range his plane could have been forced into by bad weather.

They are not giving numeric probabilities. They are giving vague descriptions of the likelihood. "Extremely farfetched", "Highly Unlikely", etc. These types of descriptions are not conducive to continuous updates as the search becomes progressively more exhastive. They get bumped up in quantum fashion. Furthermore, there are political type considerations. So it's not suprising that they would want conclusive search evidence before upgrading their evaluation of a hoax to anything close to "likely".

When was the last time somebody well known staged their disappearance like this? I can't recall it ever being in the News any time in the last 40 years. Sklansky Logic would have us seeing Staged Disappearances, Conspiracies, Mob Hits, Israeli Revenge, KGB Silencers, and Illuminati Global Tinkering under every plane crash nook and auto accident cranny.

PairTheBoard