Having a strong opinion about an issue can make it hard to take in new information about it, or to consider other options when they’re presented. Thankfully, there’s an old rule that can help us avoid ...

Probability theory forms the mathematical backbone for quantifying uncertainty and random events, providing a rigorous language with which to describe both everyday phenomena and complex scientific ...

We live in a world where a lot of things seem to happen by pure chance, from winning the Lotto to losing your car keys. But the truth is, the likelihood of many everyday things happening is heavily ...

It’s estimated that human adults make about 35,000 decisions a day — the percentage of good decisions depends on the adult. These choices can be as banal as deciding to roll or crumple toilet paper or ...

Marty Makary was appointed commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2025. The prominent surgeon, medical researcher, bestselling author, and critic of the medical ...

How do you shape perception ethically when storytelling beats facts? One compelling framework that offers clarity is Bayesian persuasion, introduced by economists Kamenica and Gentzkow in 2011, —a ...

A man went on an airplane ride. Unfortunately, he fell out. Fortunately, he had a parachute on. Unfortunately, the parachute did not open. Fortunately, there was a haystack below him, directly in the ...

What links modern cosmology to 18th-century musings on billiards? The answer lies in a theorem devised by amateur mathematician Thomas Bayes AN ENGLISH cleric pondering balls on a billiard table is ...