Risk: Trying to Quantify Our Uncertainty

Lecture given by Professor David Spiegelhalter in the 2010 Darwin College Lecture Series on the topic of Risk.

There has been a traditional division between risk, which can be quantified using probability distributions, and uncertainty, which is the surrounding mess of doubt, disagreement and ignorance. In well-understood situations we may be happy to quote reasonable odds for future events, and I shall look at ways in which these risks can be communicated visually. When the problem is more complex, analysts may use a mixture of judgement and historical data to construct a mathematical model that can assess future risks, but deeper uncertainties may be glossed over. I will use examples from swine flu to climate change to illustrate different approaches to dealing with uncertainty, from ignoring it to trying to fully quantify it, and conclude that we should all try to be aware and open about the magnitude and potential consequences of our ignorance.

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[CostAnalyst]

He's confused the definition of Risk with the definition for Uncertainty. Risk is the probabilty of Loss, created BY Uncertainty.

[NosajThong]

anyone know the scoring table for values other than 10 and 5? i.e what score to give a right/wrong answer of 7?

[REDBULLHEADiphone]

I remember reading once that before a major world incident or event happens, there are many instances of peculiar and freak coincidences. It was documented with things such as the shooting of JFK. I'm not referring to these things as any time of supernatural occurence, but perhaps a study on this would one day help us quantify our uncertainty.

5* for the video. Very interesting.

[lordennis01]

You know, this wasn't very informative. It seems to me it was a presentation aimed at entertaining people rather than presenting any useful information.