Popular Science

Let’s assume there’s a deadly disease that affects 1 in every 10 people.

Let's say there’s a pretty good test for this disease which is 90% accurate (that means that if a person is sick – the test will say he’s sick in 90% of the cases, and if a person is healthy – the test will say he’s healthy in 90% of the cases).

Now, assuming you took this 90% accurate test, and got a positive result that implies that you are sick - what are the odds that you are really sick?

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User Comments

  1. Great riddle! Took me a few tries to get it right. The answer is on my blog, in case you missed the discussion on the main boards:

    necrofiles.blogspot.com/2009/06/bayesian-analysis-to-probably-be-or.html

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