Individual Risk: Does it Exist?

Richard Dawid (Cambridge University)

Abstract: http://goo.gl/Dg4X6I
Writing recently about her decision to have a preventive double mastectomy, Angelina Jolie said: "My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman." Where do such figures come from, and what if anything do they mean? Is it even possible to assign risk values to individual events?  I shall consider various statistical and philosophical attempts to grapple with these issues.

Tue 10 Dec
Richard Bradley, LSE
Counterfactuals and Chances

Directions: http://www.london.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/home/map.pdf

Abstracts: http://goo.gl/KZKD8a

Convenor: Prof Mauricio Suarez: [email protected].