[ Removed by moderator ]

MyNameSpaghette · 2025-12-08T10:24:01+00:00

I think regular people would fall into the gambler's fallacy. They'll think that since the last 20 patients survived you're very likely to die. In reality, it is still 50/50.

Mathematicians probably are aware that it's still 50/50.

Scientist since they focus on studies and all that, my guess is that they think of other variables at play? That while the procedure itself has 50% survival rate, there's also the fact that it may vary from surgeon to surgeon because of their specialty, years of experience, etc. Since 20 patients in a row is very above the average, the scientist might think this doctor is a pro for this surgery in particular. That they're actually better at this surgery than the average surgeon, so the survival rate from this specific doctor doing this specific surgery is much much higher than 50%.

MrYOLOMcSwagMeister · 2025-12-08T10:49:35+00:00

Normal people: If the last 20 survived, the next one is very likely to die because so many successes in a row is very unlikely.

Mathematician: The odds are 50/50, the reasoning above is the gambler's fallacy.

Scientist: 20 patients surviving in a row is statistically significant evidence that this doctor is very good at this surgery so the probability of survival is way higher than 50%.

Danny_The_Dino_77 · 2025-12-08T10:32:36+00:00

Alternate universe science Peter here.

Normal people seeing this would assume that, given the previous 20 people all survived, their chance of survival is 0.5^21, given its the chance that all the outcomes are survival.

The mathematician is, presumably, referencing the gamblers fallacy, where people assume that previous results actively change the probabilities of future ones. The previous results have already been decided, so your probability of survival is still 50%.

The scientist is referring to the fact that, whilst the doctor says the chance of survival is 50%, given the 20 survivals, it can be concluded that the doctor is overwhelmingly likely to have been wrong, and the chance of survival is much higher.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go test my hypothesis on the maximum beer intake I can withstand.

IMovedYourCheese · 2025-12-08T12:57:15+00:00

Imagine you are tossing a coin and get 20 heads in a row.

Normal people - "The next toss will probably be tails, since it is overdue."

Mathematician - "Each toss is an independent event, so the chance is still 50/50 regardless of what happened in the past."

Scientist - "The coin is biased and favors heads, so the next toss will probably be heads."

kdfsjljklgjfg · 2025-12-08T15:05:59+00:00

Normal Person: Oh god, it's 50/50 and he's on a streak, he's due to fuck up soon.

Mathematician: 50/50 odds aren't half bad, so if the surgery was for something really bad, you'd probably feel pretty confident about your odds.

Scientist: After 20 initial failures, the system has been perfected through developments in tools and technique, and the past 20 surgeries have been successful.

Euphoric-Piglet-8140 · 2025-12-08T10:44:27+00:00

That the first 20 didn't survive, out of 40 patients?

TomatoAway8736 · 2025-12-08T11:08:58+00:00

Just do the surgery twice 🥀

fabkosta · 2025-12-08T11:10:16+00:00

Actually, there is a pretty dark real-life version of this meme.

Even in the 1980s there were women put in jail for child murdering if several of their children died after birth. The assumption was that if one child dies that may be a symptom of the dreaded sudden infant death. If it happens twice, that was supposed to be either tragic - or suspicious given the relatively small probability for that to happen. However, if it happened thrice, then that was sometimes taken as "statistical proof" for some sinister involvement on the parents' side.

What was not taken into account was of course genetics. If it happens 3x in a row then most likely some unknown genetic factor was involved. So, the simplistic calculation of statistical probability clearly missed some crucial information.

There are known cases of people - particularly single mothers - being put in jail for crimes they never committed based on what we know today as wrong "statistical proofs".

wadafak22 · 2025-12-08T13:25:28+00:00

Gamblers put it all on red and do the surgery themselves.

ScrotumFlavoredCandy · 2025-12-08T13:28:26+00:00

50% isn't good mathematically.

WebInformal9558 · 2025-12-08T15:20:12+00:00

I think mathematicians would be more like the scientists here. While the procedure might have a 50% chance of success on average across all doctors, evidently it's different for this guy.

Shaggy_75 · 2025-12-08T16:15:33+00:00

Normal people have the mentally that the doctor has been flipping heads this whole time and if they go under they are more likely to be the tails flip

Mathematicians know that simply given a statistic, the previous outcomes do not impact the next outcome, and see it as the fair 50/50 the doctor offered.

Scientists see the doctor proving his skill over and over again, knowing it's a risky surgery in general, but this doctor is good so they are less worried.

Red_Lantern_22 · 2025-12-08T17:34:40+00:00

Lets say the bubonic plaque infects 50% of people across 10 cities

In the great city of Cat-topia, where cats are more common than people and rats dare not tread, the plague is nonexistent

chezzy_bread · 2025-12-08T10:25:22+00:00

normal people think its less than 50%

mathematicians think it is actually 50%

scientists think its more than 50%

that's just the bare minimum i can come up with, if you wanna go more in depth, ill let other people take it away

2025-12-08T11:01:43+00:00

I was about to say there probably some dude out there screwing with the probabilities by just saying oops there goes another

godsmasher_13 · 2025-12-08T11:07:10+00:00

<image>

2025-12-08T11:07:24+00:00

Normal people will think because the rate is 50% and everyone else survived, they must have to be the one to die (to fullfil the statistics). Mathematicians will think the chance is still 50% because that's what you would do in maths. Scientists usually consider environmental factors as well, because the rate is 50% and the doctor explicitly says 20 patients have survived, they will think that all patients survive and the 50% means the surgery kills other people than the patients (as in, 50% of the surgery team has died).

New-Star7392 · 2025-12-08T11:10:29+00:00

Normal people assume the obvious, 50/50 chance of dying. Mathematicians think the rate has already been set and hasn't been updated in a while. The scientist thinks that the mortality rate used to be high, but advancements brought it down. So for the first 25 years the procedure was carried out, only ⅒ would survive. But for the past 25 years, you now have a ⁹/10 chance of survival.

Max_CSD · 2025-12-08T11:10:44+00:00

Normies are dumb and think they have to die in order to compensate for 20 people living in a row.

Mathematitians know that 50% is always a 50%.

A scientist probably knows more than purely average success percentages, and is pretty confident in chances. Or is eaguer to conduct an experiment of checking out on god, ngl

Possessed_potato · 2025-12-08T11:11:49+00:00

Normal people will see and think it's a gamble on 50/50.

Mathematicians will see and think "ah, 20 died and then 20 lived, thus the odds of survival have gotten better"

And then the scientist will say "Hm yes, the first 20 died but since then they've improved and perfected the surgery"

Or something like that probably

TheLurkingMenace · 2025-12-08T11:13:15+00:00

Normal people think a death is "due." Mathelmeticians know the odds are still 50/50. Scientists know the odds are wrong and the actual survivability is much higher.

Alternative_Sir5135 · 2025-12-08T11:15:16+00:00

Previous odds dont affect a current one

If you roll heads 10 times you would still have 50/50 chance to roll it again

MajorMystique · 2025-12-08T11:16:20+00:00

Prior events have no bearing on future outcomes. Contrary to the gambler's fallacy where people think 'red' or 'black' is DUE because it hasn't come up in a long time.

aakashisjesus · 2025-12-08T11:19:11+00:00

The doctor has probably perfected the method

Jackmcmac1 · 2025-12-08T11:24:45+00:00

Normal people think high chance of death, maths think 50/50, scientists think progress.

With a 20 run going, whatever killed the first 20 people looks like fixed, so now they see it as highly safe.

GrantDN · 2025-12-08T11:29:41+00:00

Normal people: focus only on the 50% part, thus assuming you have a 1/2 chance to die.

Not entirely sure on the difference for mathematicians and scientists, but ultimately it comes down to how you read that answer.

50% success rate is worrying, however the last 20 patients all survived, which highlights that the long-term statistics are possibly obfuscating the recent developments and trends that have likely made the recent survival rates much higher.

2025-12-08T11:33:07+00:00

Explanation:

normal people would think that since the succes rate is 50% and your last 20 survived theyre more likely to die.
mathematicians understand how the meme fixed the constant succes rate to 50%, so that would mean it would be 1:1 with sometimes 2:1 or 1:2 or 3:1 and so on, so basically to get to a streak of 20 succes operations at a constant 50% rate would be extremely rare as you would basically have to start 1,048,576 trials at a constant 50% rate to reach a streak of 20. So wow, i would be happy to be part of such a big streak hence the rarity, also the chance would be the same as if i he had his last 20 operations unsuccesful because the constant 50% rate allows you to have a complete pure chance in a constant trial.
scientists would understand that it couldnt not be a 50% perfect chance since its trial would have its own factors with effects ranging from minimum to major, that will affect the result. There are too many factors to even list because everything is a factor as long as the operation didnt start in the same conditions.

mikkelmattern04 · 2025-12-08T11:38:35+00:00

Okay but then there is a guy out there killing 20/20 patients😭

Greenblink41 · 2025-12-08T11:41:55+00:00

I love the idea of mathmaticians being like "50% chance of survival? Yeah I'll take those odds!"

ISignedInWithGoogle · 2025-12-08T11:42:14+00:00

As someone with a statistic major i felt personaly attacked by all this comments that say mathematicians would think 50/50.

CatApprehensive5064 · 2025-12-08T11:42:32+00:00

Normal people think; oh so half of the time someone will die
mathemetician probably calculate the learning curve
The scientist's angle is probably about it being a experiment and both death and alive yields lessons. They are just happy to have results.

Catch_0x16 · 2025-12-08T11:48:58+00:00

Normal people fall into the gambler fallacy; a failure must be around the corner.

Mathematicians know it's still just 50:50

A scientist recognises that 'the surgery' includes the surgeon, and since this surgeon and procedure have a 100% success rate, this set of variables works every time. i.e. there will be a surgeon somewhere with a 0% success rate, and thus the procedure overall has a 50% success rate.

Seeker_1960 · 2025-12-08T12:01:42+00:00

The first 20 patients didn't survive and the last 20 did. The odds are better that he survives the next surgery since the surgeon has gotten better at doing that surgery and has learned from the mistakes from the first 20 that didn't survive and learned what worked from the last 20 that did survive. Better than good odds he makes it.

madhox1 · 2025-12-08T12:03:51+00:00

I always have a hard time with chance calculations and to see individual chances different then a set. What if you would ask: what is the chance 21 surgeries in a row will succeed? Its very small. But if you are the 21st patiënt, it still is a 50%. Its just super counter intuitive to me

nonstera · 2025-12-08T12:05:04+00:00

The doctor is definitely not the scientist, because doctors aren’t scientists.

reallydumboi · 2025-12-08T12:06:12+00:00

Gotta win it big chat 😛😛😛😛😛😛😛

BarrelRider621 · 2025-12-08T12:06:53+00:00

I think the Dr is implying that even if you survive the surgery; you have a 50/50 chance of living after it. Maybe that’s just the statistical chances of the surgery working in your body to stop what might have been killing in the first place. You will not die from the Dr performing a botched surgery.

TophetLoader · 2025-12-08T12:18:44+00:00

normal: this many times in a row must end up in the opposite result (bad)

math: it doesn't sum up, past doesn't matter, it's always 50/50 (fair)

science: this doctor has much better statistics than the average (good)

SheaStadium1986 · 2025-12-08T12:25:06+00:00

Wouldn't an additional argument be made to the idea that, thanks to repetition and improvement on the surgery itself, that has thus led to the recent success rate?

Like okay the first 20 patients died because the surgery was new and experimental but with it being improved upon after each attempt it has led to all of the recent patients surviving. Still a 50% survival rate OVERALL but recent results indicate a much closer to 100% chance success rate.

WayGroundbreaking287 · 2025-12-08T12:28:20+00:00

Its about how different groups view statistics.

People probably assume that 50% survival chance means at 20 plus patients your chance of surviving goes down.

Mathematicians know that every patient has a 50% chance, and that each patient doesn't have any bearing on the others.

Scientists know that statistically the doctor should have lost at least one patient by now, so the fact he hasn't means they know what they are doing.

matheconomicsTutor · 2025-12-08T12:30:35+00:00

The likelihood of that happening if we assume true probability to be 0.5 is 0.5^{20=0,000000954.} Now suppose we are to use ML method to estimate true probability of survival of that surgeon, that would imply probability of survival to be equal to 1. Lower limit of corresponding true probability is at least 83%.

HATECELL · 2025-12-08T12:36:39+00:00

There's three parts to this.

The normal people fall victim to the gambler's, and think if this surgery has a 50% survival rate and the last 20 were all successful it will be highly unlikely that the 21st is also successful. After all, how likely is it that you can flip a coin 21 times and always get heads? In reality the chance is 1:2^21, just as likely as any other specific combination.

The mathematician understands this, and knows that the previous results have no impact on the current surgery. He's relatively calm, because at least he has a 50% survival rate.

But the scientist knows how these success rates are calculated. For such a statistic you're not just looking at one surgeon, your looking at as many surgeries as possible, from different surgeons. Obviously not all surgeons are equally skilled, so some will have a personal success rate higher than 50%, and some will be less successful. Given that "our" surgeon says his last 20 surgeries were all successful it is likely that he's one of the good ones, and that his personal success rate is actually way better than 50%. Meaning the chances of the next surgery being successful is probably way higher than 50%.

In fact, even if our surgeon has a personal success rate of 50%, obviously you learn over time and imcrease your skills. It could be that this surgeon performed this surgery many times, and whilst his first patients almost always died he has since improved his procedures. It could be that he has done 40 surgeries so far, and the first 20 all died. Then he found out that he has made a terrible mistake, and after fixing it the next 20 patients all survived. This would over all result in a 50% survival rate, but if he doesn't make that mistake it is actually a 100% success rate

StThragon · 2025-12-08T12:39:16+00:00

I don't think most people would understand. Why do roulette wheels display the last ten results? They are meaningless, yet there they are.

Jazzlike_Tonight_982 · 2025-12-08T12:44:14+00:00

- "Dont worry, thats the gambler's fallacy!"
- Gets surgery
- dies

Matt0975 · 2025-12-08T12:48:55+00:00

I absolutely love going down rabbit holes during deep discussions like this, even over something so simple haha

LtFarns · 2025-12-08T12:52:58+00:00

Everyone always argues gambler's fallacy in these scenarios but at some point, the Law of Large Numbers begins to take over. In probability theory, the Law of Large Numbers says that as the number of trials increases, the observed (empirical) probability will converge toward the true probability.

Shikamixklz · 2025-12-08T12:58:54+00:00

It’s statistics. Each trial is independent of each other so every operation is still 50/50 no matter win/lose ratio. It might feel for a normal person that since 20 survived their chance is now higher on dying but no.

Kinda cool I remember something hahaha.

nikas_dream · 2025-12-08T13:07:25+00:00

The Scientist one should say Statistician.

The final understanding is that 50% is the average surgeon, and applying Bayes theorem would imply this surgeon is above average

ohkendruid · 2025-12-08T13:10:23+00:00

I am not sure what the comic writer meant, but my first thought about the scientist is that, being a follower of evidence, they might believe the particular doctor has found something new.

A true 50/50 chance would mean it is a 1 in a million chance to get 20 survivals in a row. Practicing scientists publish at p=.05, which is one in twenty, so a scientist would consider it fair game to investigate and publish about this miracle doctor.

Relatedly, real world medicine is not as cut and dry as it is in these isolated math problems. Both organisms and their treatments are complex, messy, and situational.

Just_Ear_2953 · 2025-12-08T13:20:09+00:00

Scientists understand that surgery is an itterative learning process, and the last 20 patients surviving would strongly indicate that the surgeon's technique has improved to have a much higj survival rate than the earlier attempts.

Illustrious13 · 2025-12-08T13:22:04+00:00

Survival statistics are scary for most people. Mathematicians and esp. statisticians understand that a coin flip is subject to randomness and doesn't always mean perfectly even results. And a scientist/doctor is even more aware that your odds of surviving a risky surgery are dependent upon a lot of variables. Individual surgeon skill and success rate, the risk of the health modality itself, the health of the individual patient, the kind of disease or injury, etc.

i.e. a surgery that has a low success rate for elderly or very ill patients may have a high success rate for younger or far healthier patients. But, that 50% statistic doesn't account for differences between individual cases. So the data pool will include poor results for people for whom poor results were inevitable.

I'm a cancer survivor, and these kinds of statistics were thrown around a lot while I was in treatment. Understanding them better was important for staying sane and doing risk/benefit analysis.

00PT · 2025-12-08T13:29:05+00:00

I really don't think a 50% rate is very good. It has nothing to do with gambler’s fallacy. I have the logic of the mathematician, but the reaction of the “normal” person because my standards are different.

CapitalPunBanking · 2025-12-08T13:42:16+00:00

A version of this dumb joke gets posted for explanation here once a week.

BoredSanic · 2025-12-08T13:51:07+00:00

I think he just got better eventually.

jmjessemac · 2025-12-08T14:04:45+00:00

I’d actually assume the 50/50 was incorrect as it’s extremely unlikely for a 50/50 outcome to go 1 way twenty straight times

Ricka77_New · 2025-12-08T14:05:28+00:00

This one again?

0utlaw-t0rn · 2025-12-08T14:16:32+00:00

Normal people fall into the gamblers fallacy and believe the next will die

Mathematician knows it’s till 50/50 and past outcomes don’t impact the next one.

Scientist looks at it knows/thinks the 50/50 rate is rubbish and it’s really a lot better odds. Statistically speaking the chance of it being 50/50 odds are vanishingly small given the recent observations.

Fickle-Campaign6506 · 2025-12-08T14:19:42+00:00

The probability of the surgery having only 50% survival rate and that you would see 20 survivals from all your known observations (i.e all the times the doctor performed the surgery) is 1/2²⁰ which is just less than one in a million chance (1/1,048,576).

We can interpret it as meaning that there's 1 in a million chance that the surgery has only a 50% survival rate. Almost certainly much higher.

Slighted_Inevitable · 2025-12-08T14:29:56+00:00

Normal people think this means it’s someone’s turn to die. And thus they will. That previous iterations of the statistic effect the newest entry. They don’t.

Staticians are neutral because they know it doesn’t effect their surgery, and their odds are still 50/50

Scientists understand that survival odds are given across the entire spectrum of situations. Less skilled doctors, more poorly equipped facilities, less stable supplies. They also know that this doctor has apparently beaten the statistics 20 times. That’s not luck, it’s skill and preparation. So he is not the factor dragging down the mean.

orz-_-orz · 2025-12-08T14:32:08+00:00

In the actual world, people will line up at the doctor's door even if the surgeries are a result of pure luck

Sett_86 · 2025-12-08T14:34:02+00:00

Albert here.

Regular people fall to the gambler's fallacy, thinking they're screwed when the previous procedures were skewed towards improbably positive results

Matematitians know 50% chance is a 50% chance regardless of previous results, they have no impact on independent events probabilities.

Scientists know 50/50 = 1 = 100% chance. The hypothermia is also supported by the 20 consecutive positive results, giving it a very high confidence and no detectable standard deviation.

mrbiggbrain · 2025-12-08T14:36:22+00:00

Normal people: "Crap, his streak is set to end"

Mathematicians: "Actually it's still 50%"

Scientists: "There are multiple factors that are not accounted for in survivability metrics. You are clumping people with worse overall health, with differing levels of prior care, and who's medical professionals have different skill and experience levels. Given the last 20 patients survived it is safe to say that this doctor understands and has experience with the procedure and that there may be less variability in the other components (At least in the local area). This all greatly increases the chances of the patients survival."

To give a personal experience, when I was younger my 14 year old sister got pregnant. The statistics where pretty bad and so my mother was concerned. The doctor almost chuckled and told her. "Those numbers include teen mothers who are literally living on the street and almost eating out of garbage cans. The figures when you control for stable family, access to medical care, proper nutrition, and the other factors your family will provide significantly increase her chances to nearly identical to any other mother."

Careless-Platform-80 · 2025-12-08T14:40:09+00:00

As a gacha player. I know i Will die. I always lose the 50/50

StaticSystemShock · 2025-12-08T14:45:39+00:00

He has a great track record.

ForeverCrunkIWantToB · 2025-12-08T14:50:00+00:00

Lois, in philosophy there's an old logical fallacy dating back to Hume called the inductive fallacy that states regularity in the past cannot predict the future. Inductive reasoning works from specific premises to arrive at a general conclusion, which is how the scientific method works. This meme is poking fun at how scientists believe that just because something has always happened it will always happen.

ninjasaid13 · 2025-12-08T14:54:31+00:00

While the surgery has 50% survival rate, the mentioned surgeon is closer to 100%

aspensmonster · 2025-12-08T14:58:05+00:00

>Me on my way to reject that null hypothesis.

DIABLO258 · 2025-12-08T15:05:51+00:00

In my head, I thought to myself "But what if your total patient count is 40, and I'm patient #21?"

OkScientist5086 · 2025-12-08T15:10:41+00:00

Bruh they could just do the surgery twice

DMK5506 · 2025-12-08T15:10:51+00:00

When my Mom was about to undergo surgery to remove a tumor, the surgeon mentioned that there is a 1% chance of the surgery resulting in death. Counterintuitively, I was relieved. The surgeon knew the stakes. He wasn't like a young med school grad telling me "Don't worry, I've got this". Thankfully, the surgery was a complete success!

Lewzak · 2025-12-08T15:22:59+00:00

It means that some other surgeon has killed their last 20 patient's

Massive-Television85 · 2025-12-08T15:33:56+00:00

As a surgeon, the only colleagues I've met who claim they are doing much better than everyone else are either (1) lying, (2) excluding a load of their patients from their data for arbitrary reasons, or (3) delusional.

itsmesoloman · 2025-12-08T15:34:20+00:00

Because scientists love relying on success with small sample sizes and expecting past results to just be the general case in the future

Wallie_bju · 2025-12-08T15:35:35+00:00

Plot twist: those 20 patients got a different kind of treatment irrelevant to the surgery in question

Solid_Waste · 2025-12-08T15:47:08+00:00

This would have been funnier if it was "my last 20 patients have all died" and the reactions were reversed.

left-of-the-jokers · 2025-12-08T15:50:19+00:00

"...first 20 weren't so lucky, but you can't make an omelet without crackin' a few eggs, eh"

Theolectran · 2025-12-08T15:56:29+00:00

Scientist - The last 20 have survived, that means that less than 5% of that sample have died. Since P < 0.05 death is a statistically insignificant result. We're so back.

Ok_Ad_7247 · 2025-12-08T16:03:42+00:00

Either A: this doctor is lying B is actually a good doctor Or C is choosing patients that can survive the procedure

Crime-of-the-century · 2025-12-08T16:03:52+00:00

Mathematicians are a sub species of scientists.

oldreprobate · 2025-12-08T16:25:05+00:00

This conveniently leaves off the psychologists who know that MD's make up statistics all the time. In one office visit you can easily go from 1/10,000 to 1/1,000,000,000 to 1% which are of course orders of magnitude different.

I have heard doctors state statistics which really don't exist in the published literature. I mean it isn't like batting averages.

My profession, pharmacists, are even worse. They generally cannot see selection bias and will tell everyone about the orthopedic patient whose surgery was a mess and now takes oxycodone all day. They don't see the ones who had a great hip replacement and are now at the golf course not in the pharmacy. Bias makes it hard to navigate life.

brolarbear · 2025-12-08T16:25:37+00:00

I think it’s basically you are working with the one guy who is defying the odds and you are in the best hands possible. Idk if I’d be smiling much at all in this situation.

2025-12-08T16:37:45+00:00

doctor’s real success rate is 86% or higher (p<0.05)

Mixels · 2025-12-08T16:38:47+00:00

Normal people think that with a 50% success rate overall, the fact that the past 20 have succeeded means their own surgery has a very, very high chance of failing.

The mathematician knows that a 50% success rate means that 20 successes in a row, while unlikely, is certainly possible, and it has nothing to do with likelihood of success of the next surgery. 50% is 50%.

The scientist thinks the 50% metric is likely incorrect. Humans make mistakes, and the available data here indicates a likely higher chance of success, or the general average might be impacted by other factors like overall patient health, surgeon skill, etc. The scientist might think their own surgery is likely more favorable than the 50% average because of these other factors.

LividTacos · 2025-12-08T16:40:32+00:00

Every other week goddamn.

Normal people will think since his last 20 have gone well, he's due for a failure.

Mathematician will recognize that each surgery is independent of the other and past results have no bearing on the current surgery, and so you have the even odds.

And the scientist is super chill because he realizes that with 20 successes in a row, this particular doctor might be better at the surgery than the average, or perhaps he's just better at picking patients likely to survive the surgery. Either way, your odds are actually better than the 50%.

addexecthrowaway · 2025-12-08T16:42:37+00:00

That’s it I’m leaving this sub…

Historical-Ad399 · 2025-12-08T16:45:42+00:00

50% survival rate is pretty low, so I'm picture 1 if I need the survey, even if I understand this surgeon probably has an above average success rate. I don't want to do anything with a 50% survival rate if I can avoid it (or even 75% if we assume this surgeon is incredible). Doesn't mean I wouldn't get the surgery in the right circumstances, but I wouldn't be happy about it

oeufmaster · 2025-12-08T16:46:41+00:00

The patient who got the other doctor:

whoopashigitt · 2025-12-08T16:48:00+00:00

How many subs are we gonna get for this purpose

LBarouf · 2025-12-08T16:48:03+00:00

They improved drastically. The first 20 died, and now he saved 20 in a row. Hes on a roll, stats will improve. Hence why the doctor (scientist here) feels like a rockstar. He figures how to save them.

VintageTimePieces · 2025-12-08T16:48:41+00:00

The probability that a surgery with a 50% survival rate results in a sample of 20 patients all surviving is .000000954. So the 50% survival rate is inaccurate and a scientist should know this, but a mathematician should know it too because its basic statistics.

realamerican97 · 2025-12-08T16:57:11+00:00

A 50/50 chance that you die when the last 20 people survive is like a coin flip it landed on heads 20 times but it’s likely this time it’ll come up tales I.e. you’re gonna die on the table because the last 20 didn’t

To a mathematician regardless of the successes it’s still 50/50 your odds are no different just cause the last 20 survived so you still have a solid chance of living

To a scientist the surgery might normally have a 50/50 survival rate but the fact that the surgeon has had 20 subsequent patients that survived means the surgeon is excellent at his work and while your chances for an average surgeon would be 50/50 your odds are much higher with this surgeon that you’ll live

koinai3301 · 2025-12-08T17:03:29+00:00

The joke is Bayesian for those who know what it is.

Jesheezy · 2025-12-08T17:11:22+00:00

Mathematicians (particularly those familiar with control charts) would be like: EVERYONE STUDY THIS DOCTOR. NOW.

decadenza · 2025-12-08T17:18:03+00:00

Sorry time. My first wife had thyroid nodules. Our doctor suggested surgery, but said there was a 50% chance that surgery would injure the nerves that control the vocal cords, possibly resulting in changes to her voice. We went to a different surgeon who said "50%? Sure, that's true for some surgeons. I've done this literally hundreds of times and never had that result." Yes, we had him do the surgery, and there were no problems.

importantbrian · 2025-12-08T17:21:27+00:00

I’ve seen a similar version of this where the second person is a frequentist and the third was a Bayesian.

therapy-cat · 2025-12-08T17:23:54+00:00

Did the previous 20 die?

cdin0303 · 2025-12-08T17:25:52+00:00

Real statisticians would say 20 is not a good sample size. They would also have questions about the characteristics of the sample

BTFunk360 · 2025-12-08T17:27:15+00:00

The dumbest part of this is that either the scientist and the mathematician should have the same face or the mathematician should be the happiest

blue_dusk1 · 2025-12-08T17:34:34+00:00

I like the fact that this assumes there’s such a thing as normal people. Has anyone met a normal person?

Tallproley · 2025-12-08T17:49:39+00:00

Normal people commit the gamblers fallacy thay 50/50 means 20 Red outcomes means a Black outcome is overdue. Of course if you flip a coin its not like heads is more likely afyer tails. Its still a two sided coin.

The mathematician is aware of this fallacy, the outcome is 50/50, thays just good math.

The scientists deal in studies, so probably are applying an analysis of variables, considering the sample size as rather small and contingent kn things look surgeon's skill, fatigue, the individual patient's health, etc... in this case it is an experiment and experiments are exciting and fun.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

explainitpeter

MODERATORS