Friday, October 06, 2017

A Test

DATA

The Crime Prevention Research Center notes that:

During 2014 and 2015 there were 1,761 bombings in the world that killed at least four people. Of those, 1,401 were by radical Muslims, 58 were non-Muslims, and 302 were unknown. It seems likely that most of those unknown attacks were also by radical Muslims, but even if that isn’t the case, at least 80% of these bombings were done by radical Muslims and possibly as few as 3.3% are done by non-Muslims. Obviously, the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving, but a small percentage of Muslims are responsible for a great deal of harm.

TEST QUESTION

You are told that a bombing has occurred that killed at least four people.  You are asked to guess whether the perpetrator was a muslim on not.  If you guess correctly, $1,000 will be contributed to a charity of your choice.  What is your guess?

If you guess Muslim, congratulations.  You are rational and have maximized the probability of your charity getting $1,000.  You also are a profiler.

If you guess non-Muslim, you are neither a profiler nor rational.

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