We Can’t Abolish Uncertainty
No matter how much we try
It’s going to rain in a couple of hours; there’s a 54% chance of rain today at 4 pm. Earlier today, that wasn’t the case. When I checked this morning, the rain was much more likely — 67% — and it was supposed to come at 2:00. Last night, it seemed like the whole day was going to be a rainout, with significant chances of rain from 10 am on. But it’s 2:00 and not a drop has fallen.
There are two problems in the paragraph above. First, the weather app on my phone is not providing me with very useful information. Like most of its ilk, it’s full of precise-looking graphs, percentages, and exact predictions — one week from today we will have a partly-cloudy day with a high of 73 and a low of 47 — but, honestly, none of those numbers mean much.
Imagine that the app, rather than giving me specifics — we will have a high of 74 with a 54% chance of rain and winds from the northwest at 5 mph — had simply told me that “it will be cool and calm; it might rain, it might not,” would I be any worse informed about the weather?
OK, so my weather app is not all that great. But the bigger problem is with me. I turn the app’s probabilistic predictions into certainties. I see a 67% chance of rain at 2 pm and translate that into “it will rain at 2,” even though that’s not what the app is telling…
