Sandbox

Interpreting climate change probabilities

Bob Griffin sent a link to the following

The interpretation of IPCC probabilistic statements around the world
by David V. Budescu, et al, Nature Climate Change, 20 April 2014

which he describes as "an intriguing look at how folks in different cultures around the world interpret the verbal statements of uncertainty that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses. They found that an alternative presentation format (verbal terms with numerical ranges) improves the correspondence between the IPCC guidelines and public interpretations. The alternative presentation format also produces more stable results across cultures. Of course, the implications here could go beyond reactions to the IPCC uncertainty statements."

Only the abstract is available to non subscribers, but you can read more about the study design in this Fordham University press release. As described there:

For the study, 1,000 volunteers in 24 countries and in 17 different languages were asked to provide their interpretations of the intended meaning and possible range of eight sentences from the IPCC report that included various phrases such as "very likely," "likely," "unlikely" and "very unlikely." In the context of the report, each term is meant to correspond to a range of numerical probabilities - "very likely refers to 90 percent or higher probability, and "unlikely" means 33 percent or lower probability.

Reproducibility

When studies are wrong: A coda
by George Johnson, New York Times, 7 March 2014

Submitted by Bill Peterson

Finding lost aircraft

Jeanne Albert sent a link to the following

How statisticians found Air France Flight 447 two years after it crashed into Atlantic
MIT Technology Review, 27 May 2014

How statisticians could help find that missing plane, by Carl Bialik, FiveThirtyEight, 17 March 2014