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#2 - David Spiegelhalter on risk, stats and improving understanding of science

80,000 Hours Podcast

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How Do You Overestimate Risks?

There's a lot of evidence that people tend to be very poor estimating lots of different probabilities. And so end up overestimating the scale of some problems or risks that they face and under estimating others. Do you feel you've had any success improving public understanding of risks, in getting people to focus on the stuff that really matters? Oh, i don't know, it's greatbet yore, sure. It'd be great to think so. I'm not making any claim about some superior knowledge and rationality compared with everybody else. Im what i am pd of is being part of a general community that's very strong in britain to do with public engagement in science.

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