#2440: Epistemic Uncertainty

[Two panels are shown with labels above them.]

Regular Uncertainty

Epistemic Uncertainty

[In both panels Megan stands in front of a data presentation on a slide behind her. She is pointing at the slide with a stick.]

[In the left panel titled ‘Regular Uncertainty’. Megan standing in front of a presentation of a graph showing, from top to bottom, the number 74%, a horizontal line with a small black diamond near the middle representing an average with error bars, and a line of dots representing data in a horizontal scatter plot.]

Megan: Our study found the drug was 74% effective, with a confidence interval from 63% to 81%.

74%

[In the right panel titled ‘Epistemic Uncertainty’. Megan stands in front of a presentation of data with a silhouette of a man with a hat labelled with a white question mark. Above this are three guesses of the “real” result and its relation to the study result.]

Megan: Our study found the drug to be 74% effective.

Megan: However, there is a 1 in 4 chance that our study was modified by George the Data Tamperer, whose whims are unpredictable.

73 -> 74??

47 -> 74??

0 -> 74??