BASE RATE EFFECT 2)
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"The effect that the chances of an event occuring at all - its base rate - have on our ability to predict it" (R. MATTHEWS, 1997, p.25)
The more infrequent an event, the less we can predict its occurence.
This has practical consequences. MATTHEWS states: "Its central lesson - that rare events are hard to predict - could… save us from spending millions on what may well be scientific wild goose chase". As a possible example, the author gives the prediction of earthquakes, a costly research until now "without a single unequivocal success" (p.31).
Criticality theory helps to understand the deeper reasons of such failures.
Categories
- 1) General information
- 2) Methodology or model
- 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
- 4) Human sciences
- 5) Discipline oriented
Publisher
Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).
To cite this page, please use the following information:
Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]
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