Rules For 50 50 Chances

Seventeen-year-old Rose Levenson has a decision to make: Does she want to know how she's going to die? Because when Rose turns eighteen, she can take the test that tells her if she carries the genetic mutation for Huntington's disease, the degenerative condition that is slowly killing her mother. With a fifty-fifty shot at inheriting her family's genetic curse, Rose is skeptical about pursuing anything that presumes she'll live to be a healthy adult-including her dream career in ballet and the possibility of falling in love. But when she meets a boy from a similarly flawed genetic pool and gets an audition for a dance scholarship across the country, Rose begins to question her carefully laid rules.

Probability has fascinated philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians for hundreds of years. Although the mathematics of probability is, for most applications, clear and uncontroversial, the interpretation of probability statements continues to be fraught with controversy and confusion. What does it mean to say that the probability of some event X occurring is 31%? In the 20th century a consensus emerged that there are at least two legitimate kinds of probability, and correspondingly at least two kinds of possible answers to this question of meaning. Subjective probability, also called 'credence' or 'degree of belief' is a numerical measure of the confidence of some person or some ideal rational agent. Objective probability, or chance, is a fact about how things are in the world. It is this second type of probability with which Carl Hoefer is concerned in this volume, specifically how we can understand the meaning of statements about objective probability. He aims to settle the question of what objective chances are, once and for all, with an account that can meet the demands of philosophers and scientists alike. For Hoefer, chances are constituted by patterns that can be discerned in the events that happen in our world. These patterns are ideally appropriate guides to what credences limited rational agents, such as ourselves, should have in situations of imperfect knowledge. By showing this, Hoefer bridges the gap between subjective probability and chance. In a field where few scholars have given adequate treatment to interpreting statements of chance, Hoefer develops a philosophically rich theory which draws on the disciplines of metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy of science.

A compelling journey through history, mathematics, and philosophy, charting humanity’s struggle against randomness Our lives are played out in the arena of chance. However little we recognize it in our day-to-day existence, we are always riding the odds, seeking out certainty but settling—reluctantly—for likelihood, building our beliefs on the shadowy props of probability. Chances Are is the story of man’s millennia-long search for the tools to manage the recurrent but unpredictable—to help us prevent, or at least mitigate, the seemingly random blows of disaster, disease, and injustice. In these pages, we meet the brilliant individuals who developed the first abstract formulations of probability, as well as the intrepid visionaries who recognized their practical applications—from gamblers to military strategists to meteorologists to medical researchers, from blackjack to our own mortality.

What distinguishes laws of nature from ordinary facts? What are the "lawmakers": the facts in virtue of which the laws are laws? How can laws be necessary, yet contingent? Lange provocatively argues that laws are distinguished by their necessity, which is grounded in primitive subjunctive facts, while also providing a non-technical and accessible survey of the field.

Nobel Prize winner Thomas Schelling taught a course in game theory and rational choice to advanced students and government officials for 45 years. In this book, Robert Dodge provides in language for a broad audience the concepts that Schelling taught. Armed with Schelling's understanding of game theory methods and his approaches to problems, the general reader can improve daily decision making.

Lara Buchak sets out a new account of rational decision-making in the face of risk. She argues that the orthodox view (expected utility theory) is too narrow, and suggests an alternative, more permissive theory: one that allows individuals to pay attention to the worst-case or best-case scenario, and vindicates the ordinary decision-maker.

Considers the efficacy and constitutionality of various proposals for identifying American communists and placing limits on their activities; pt. 5: Explores internal security problems related to allegedly subversive activities of black nationalist groups in Cleveland, Ohio; pt. 6: Explores internal security problems related to Communist Party activities and considers proposals to centralize Federal government internal security procedures; pt. 7: Considers DOD industrial personnel security clearance program and general impact of subversive activities on the nation.