文档介绍：28 Resampling: The New Statistics
CHAPTER
Basic Concepts in Probability
2 and Statistics, Part 1
“Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is pain-
ful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support
forting fairy tales.”
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945, p. xiv)
Introduction
The Nature and Meaning of the Concept of Probability
The Various Ways of Estimating Probabilities
Introduction
The central concept for dealing with uncertainty is probabil-
ity. Hence we must inquire into the “meaning” of the term
probability. (The term “meaning” is in quotes because it can
be a confusing word.)
You have been using the notion of probability all your life
when drawing conclusions about what you expect to happen,
and in reaching decisions in your public and personal lives.
You wonder: Will the footballer’s kick from the 45 yard line
go through the uprights? How much oil can you expect from
the next well you drill, and what value should you assign to
that prospect? Will you be the first one to discover pletely
effective system for converting speech puter-typed
output? Will the next space shuttle end in disaster? Your an-
swers to these questions rest on the probabilities you estimate.
And you act on the basis of probabilities: You place your blan-
ket on the beach where there is a low probability of someone’s
kicking sand on you. You bet heavily on a poker hand if there
is a high probability that you have the best hand. A hospital
decides not to buy another ambulance when the administra-
tor judges that there is a low probability that all the other am-
bulances will ever be in use at once. NASA decides whether
or not to send off the space shuttle this morning as scheduled.
Chapter 2—Basic Concepts in Probability and Statistics, Part 1 29
This chapter discusses what is meant by such key terms as
“probability,”“conditional” and “unco