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by TeMPOraL 2255 days ago
Bayesian updates should be taught in schools, at least at the most coarse-grained level. Not to let people calculate anything; almost nobody is going to need that in life anyway. But so that some authority (which a school is) tells people they're allowed and supposed to update their beliefs on evidence. That evidence drags belief more in one direction than the other. That 0 and 1 are not probabilities in real life. That being certain of something is a rare thing, that they should embrace being more or less sure. That this is not someone's random worldview, but there is a proper (and rather fundamental) mathematical formalism behind it, it's just impossible to apply it fully in real life, so we have to approximate it.