Honestly, if the doctor performed 20 successful surgeries then the most likely scenario is that the doctor is exceptionally skilled at the procedure and while your odds with a random doctor might be 50%, your odds with this particular doctor are probably significantly better than 50%.
Like most doctors will tell you is that statistics don’t matter to the individual. My mother had a 0,2% she would get acute leukemia from the chemo treatment she got for her breast cancer. She got it anyway. Then her doctor told her she had a 35% chance of survival but she is thankfully still with us
Yeah infact it should be the opposite. Normal people might fall for that fallacy and think there is no way he can get it right 21 times in a row, while a mathematician will be aware of gambler's fallacy and think that the chance is 50% regardless. Heck, a statistician might even say it's good sign that the surgeon has got 20 successful surgeries, as being successful with a surgery with 50% success rate 20 times in a row (odds of 1/2²⁰, literally one in a million chance) suggests actual skill in part of the doctor instead of pure luck.
How tf does this has 5k upvotes do people really think if you flip a coin 20 times and it lands on head the next time has higher likelyhood to be tails?
That's the joke... Normal people feel at ease because the surgeon has had a streak of 20 successes, so they think the next surgery will have a higher chance to be a success. The mathematician is scared because they know the success of the surgery is still 50%.
Honestly spent way too long thinking about it and what obscure mathematical joke I was missing, until I realized that this is just a very dumb shitpost.
Reading the 10 or so top comments... Sorry to say this, but you're on the left normal people column, except you THINK you're on the right. You SHOULD be reassured.
They're independent from each other so it'd still be 50%, just like if you have 3 children as all boys that doesn't suddenly increase your chances of having a girl.
I'd wager if the first 20 died then the next 20 survived, the surgeon got better at the surgery and/or some new surgery techniques have been implemented.
The odds of 20 people in a row getting the same outcome on a 50% likelihood procedure is so low that the only reasonable outcome here is that the doctor is lying about the 50% survival rate. At least for this doctor, their survival rate is much higher
Well a self respecting basic math enjoyer would ask themselves if the surgery has a 50% success rate or if the doctor himself/herself has a 50% success rate
Yea... not how it works, thats a gamblers fallacy, the odds would still be 50%. But, thats not even really the case either because the most likely reason that a doctor is beating the odds is he is more skilled than average since this isn't based solely on luck.
I think it's the opposite, mathematicians would be happier since every single one of them know that past results don't affect future outcomes, and if they do, it's repeating the same result. For example, if you flip 20 coins and you get 20 heads, on your next flip you can have 50% of getting heads OR more than 50% because seeing the results, maybe the coin is rigged, but never the opposite.
Honestly it's the opposite. While normal people tend to think that after so many times flipping a coin on heads a tail is "due" they're wrong, and mathematicians know very well the odds are still 50/50.
i think i heard a math youtuber talk about this and how it only applies to the next 20 and not the next 1 surgery like this surgery still has a 50% chance to be a success and it only applies if youre gonna have 20 surgeries
Perhaps the surgery does have a 50% survival rate. Although the doctor said that his last 20 patients all survived somewhere gives birth to the possibility that the 20 patients are dead whom he undertook for surgery before the successful 20
This only indicates something has changed has greatly increased the odds of the surgery being successful, such as the skill of the surgeon or the process for the procedure itself has likely changed.
If he got 20 people in a row right with a standard calculated chance of 50% he should be happy. It’s still 50% every attempt and he likely got a great doctor
I think the joke is supposed to be if he calculated it to be a 50% survival rate, then the first 20 patients died, before the second 20 survived? I think? This is too vague to be that funny imo.
You're going to try and bamboozle people with math on REDDIT? These kids might have the social skills of a rabid Chihuahua but a lot of them are straight fucking nerds.
Just to clarify google “do probabilities compound” and it will confirm that separate events even about the same topic can compound (to clarify two coin tosses are considered separate events although the shared topic) now lets assume Success Represents heads and vice versa, two events do not affect the chance of one another landing heads or tails but when considering the math behind 20 coin flips in a row you can find the chance of it with 50%20 or 1/220 the exponent representing N number of events so in the situation of the meme its a 1 in 1 million chance for that lucky 20th patient and 1 in 2 million for the next one up. (Rounding was required to simplify the answers i suggest doing the math yourself its quite fun) and as a result the chance of landing tails or getting a failure goes up the more successes there are despite it being a 50/50 chance (one last example you go to a Casino and there is a game of coin toss, assuming it is not rigged and you get 4 heads in a row what do you think is more likely to happen afterwards, a heads or tails) Note: i did this because its clear either statistics were not taught or not taught properly and has caused people to not understand that two coin tosses do not affect one another’s probability but when it comes to calculating said probability for something like Law then two separate events (which coin tosses are) compound creating an exponent 1/2n n being number of heads or tails in a row in the case of a coinflip
I think the joke is not about the next operation but about the fact that to get this statistic there had to be 40 operations performed hence the 50% success rate.
A mathematician would probably argue that the doctor should abstain from mathematical equations if he said that. If 20 in a row went well, then the previous 20 would have had to have failed - and if that is the case the doc should be overlooked for strange shit happening during surgery.
there's a difference between performing 21 successful surgeries in a row and performing one after 20 successful surgeries in a row. the latter has still a 50% chance while the former is 0.521
night_howler_grt
Honestly, if the doctor performed 20 successful surgeries then the most likely scenario is that the doctor is exceptionally skilled at the procedure and while your odds with a random doctor might be 50%, your odds with this particular doctor are probably significantly better than 50%.
Or, the doctor selected his patients for risk factors and denied or referred high risk patients.
This is the right answer IMO
Even if we ignore all the absolutely correct points you made: past events don’t effect the odds of the next event.
Bayesian statisticians see the 50% as the prior probability that needs to be updated with 20 new datapoints
Only valid answer outside of the actual thought process behind 21 coin tosses
Also, even if 20 times the surgeon had success, at the 50% quota, doesn‘t mean that it becomes more likely he will fail this time. Same with success.
Ah, speaking like a Bayesian statistician, respect
This is the way
Same as the Monty Hall problem. Odd can change based on the information you receive.
Like most doctors will tell you is that statistics don’t matter to the individual. My mother had a 0,2% she would get acute leukemia from the chemo treatment she got for her breast cancer. She got it anyway. Then her doctor told her she had a 35% chance of survival but she is thankfully still with us
220 is over 1 million, so I’d say you’re right
gambler's fallacy
Yeah infact it should be the opposite. Normal people might fall for that fallacy and think there is no way he can get it right 21 times in a row, while a mathematician will be aware of gambler's fallacy and think that the chance is 50% regardless. Heck, a statistician might even say it's good sign that the surgeon has got 20 successful surgeries, as being successful with a surgery with 50% success rate 20 times in a row (odds of 1/2²⁰, literally one in a million chance) suggests actual skill in part of the doctor instead of pure luck.
yup, mathematicians know better
Needs a third one, Statistician.
thank you
Regression to the mean.
nahhhh chief this ain't it
Actual mathematicians looking at this meme like 💀
Odds don't compound. Sorry to ruin the joke.
Cane here for this comment, thank you.
gamblers fallacy with surgeries? let's fucking go, that sounds fun
For someone who knows math a bit this is a terrible joke anyways
How tf does this has 5k upvotes do people really think if you flip a coin 20 times and it lands on head the next time has higher likelyhood to be tails?
How does he know the survival rate? Doctor has made 40 surgeries
The hot-hand fallacy is strong in the world
He's a good doctor so the odds are probably more than 50%
Guess that’s a yes
Wouldn't the mathematician be worried because they know the odds are still 50%?
That is the joke.
Yeah but it's still a 50% chance to die which should terrify anyone who's paying attention
That's the joke... Normal people feel at ease because the surgeon has had a streak of 20 successes, so they think the next surgery will have a higher chance to be a success. The mathematician is scared because they know the success of the surgery is still 50%.
Yeah I was gonna say I'm pretty sure that's not how it worked
Try telling that to
Hi, im not a mathematician but i am a high schooler and all i gotto to say is go back to school
Idk should i use binomial method which is 50% powered by 20? I have my additional math test like at next Monday
The odds are still 50%
The labels should be backwards. Mathematicians don't freak but normal people would
Right? Because the joke is this (correct me if I'm wrong):
The reality is this doctor is skilled and it's better than 50% for him.
I'm pretty sure you have that backwards
Yeah, and comments section seems to support that haha
Easy fix, just do the surgery twice, 100% chance of success
With his logic that would in fact work just add those chances up till you got the number you would like
A mathematician would know that the dice has no memory. So the former results do in no way influence the current outcome.
The mathematician also knows that there is probably a reason for the 20 streak other than chance.
A mathematician should also know that dice are random and physician skill is not
Yes, thats literally the point.
When you think you know something about math, but you really k ow nothing about math.
Huh?
Honestly spent way too long thinking about it and what obscure mathematical joke I was missing, until I realized that this is just a very dumb shitpost.
That's still 50%. Past results have no bearing on future results.
this should say "normal people and mathematicians" on the left and "idiots" on the right
Nope, BS meme
OP seems to be homeschooled
Bad mathematicians?
When you try to make a meme about probability and logic when you're bad at probability and logic
If you toss a fair coin 20 times and get heads in all of those 20 attempts, the probability of getting a heads in 21st attempt will still be 50%
Nice explanation
Gacha players: "I like those odds."
Gets Qiqi
Reading the 10 or so top comments... Sorry to say this, but you're on the left normal people column, except you THINK you're on the right. You SHOULD be reassured.
There could be 1billion patient surviving the operation you still have 50% of surviving
They're independent from each other so it'd still be 50%, just like if you have 3 children as all boys that doesn't suddenly increase your chances of having a girl.
Stay in school kids
One can only hope for the sweet embrace of death
I do not understand this meme
Don't worry. OP doesn't either.
If the last 20 survived, then it is likely that the doc.'s skills have improved
Or that the deaths come from other hospitals. 50% could be industry standard.
What about first 20
Exactly what I was thinking. His last twenty survived, but the twenty before that didn't. Which would give him his 50% chance of survival rate odds.
I'd wager if the first 20 died then the next 20 survived, the surgeon got better at the surgery and/or some new surgery techniques have been implemented.
Ok... what about it lol, just means that he's a good doctor/his patients are lucky, why is a mathematician making Dat face.
The odds of 20 people in a row getting the same outcome on a 50% likelihood procedure is so low that the only reasonable outcome here is that the doctor is lying about the 50% survival rate. At least for this doctor, their survival rate is much higher
Mathematicians with knowledge of Bayesian probability?
Your surgery is an independent event so the chance isn't affected by the other surgeries
odds are 50% either way. either happens. or it don’t.
Well a self respecting basic math enjoyer would ask themselves if the surgery has a 50% success rate or if the doctor himself/herself has a 50% success rate
The doctor is at the top percentile of skillz
Why would the mathematician be worried, they're the ones who know how probability works.
I’ve seen this meme many times, yet i still cry a little everytime i see it again without the damned text ever being switched
The number we need is how many times this doctor has performed the surgery. Could be that just two people do it and the other guy just really sucks.
Who says I want to survive?
Yea... not how it works, thats a gamblers fallacy, the odds would still be 50%. But, thats not even really the case either because the most likely reason that a doctor is beating the odds is he is more skilled than average since this isn't based solely on luck.
This template is getting so overused. It’s getting a little out of hand
I think it's the opposite, mathematicians would be happier since every single one of them know that past results don't affect future outcomes, and if they do, it's repeating the same result. For example, if you flip 20 coins and you get 20 heads, on your next flip you can have 50% of getting heads OR more than 50% because seeing the results, maybe the coin is rigged, but never the opposite.
Maybe it has increased to 50% due to these succeses and is likely to increase to 99.9%?
Honestly it's the opposite. While normal people tend to think that after so many times flipping a coin on heads a tail is "due" they're wrong, and mathematicians know very well the odds are still 50/50.
That's not how statistics works. The likelizhskkd is still 50% regardless of what happened before
Going on a roller coaster.
You should Google independent events
The doctor is on a roll. I'd bet on him.
We should make a religion out of math
Maybe the implication is that the surgeon is either lying to you or isn't doing to surgery correctly.
Wouldn't the mathematician just say the odds are still the same even if the last 50 we're successful?
Yes, thats literally the fucking point. A 50% death rate is terrifying.
i think i heard a math youtuber talk about this and how it only applies to the next 20 and not the next 1 surgery like this surgery still has a 50% chance to be a success and it only applies if youre gonna have 20 surgeries
Perhaps the surgery does have a 50% survival rate. Although the doctor said that his last 20 patients all survived somewhere gives birth to the possibility that the 20 patients are dead whom he undertook for surgery before the successful 20
That’s not how odds work.
.. but that's not how probability works
Someone's been skipping their stats classes
Anyone should be concerned about 50% survival rate.
lol op doesnt understand math and got the joke backwards ahahaha
Fumny. But that's not quite how it works.
This only indicates something has changed has greatly increased the odds of the surgery being successful, such as the skill of the surgeon or the process for the procedure itself has likely changed.
Not how mathematicians work.
Gamblers: WOOOOOOOOOOOO
If he got 20 people in a row right with a standard calculated chance of 50% he should be happy. It’s still 50% every attempt and he likely got a great doctor
When you dont know math or statistics but make a joke about one...
So, everybody is a mathematician and people with an IQ lower than 7 are 'normal people' now?
It would be a statistician who would be calculating the odds
This is stupid
Im not sure OP knows statistics very well
You don't really know how probability works do you?
A good mathematician would know what independent events are
Those pics should be switched.
I think the joke is supposed to be if he calculated it to be a 50% survival rate, then the first 20 patients died, before the second 20 survived? I think? This is too vague to be that funny imo.
Those past events don't change the chances of survival of the future events
You're going to try and bamboozle people with math on REDDIT? These kids might have the social skills of a rabid Chihuahua but a lot of them are straight fucking nerds.
Previous success or failure has zero to do with future outcome. It's still a 50% chance.
If this submission makes you go "Hol'Up", UPVOTE this comment!
Just to clarify google “do probabilities compound” and it will confirm that separate events even about the same topic can compound (to clarify two coin tosses are considered separate events although the shared topic) now lets assume Success Represents heads and vice versa, two events do not affect the chance of one another landing heads or tails but when considering the math behind 20 coin flips in a row you can find the chance of it with 50%20 or 1/220 the exponent representing N number of events so in the situation of the meme its a 1 in 1 million chance for that lucky 20th patient and 1 in 2 million for the next one up. (Rounding was required to simplify the answers i suggest doing the math yourself its quite fun) and as a result the chance of landing tails or getting a failure goes up the more successes there are despite it being a 50/50 chance (one last example you go to a Casino and there is a game of coin toss, assuming it is not rigged and you get 4 heads in a row what do you think is more likely to happen afterwards, a heads or tails) Note: i did this because its clear either statistics were not taught or not taught properly and has caused people to not understand that two coin tosses do not affect one another’s probability but when it comes to calculating said probability for something like Law then two separate events (which coin tosses are) compound creating an exponent 1/2n n being number of heads or tails in a row in the case of a coinflip
I prefer buy some food instead...
The surgeon's colleague killed his last 20.
Your math ain't mathin'
Gamblers fallacy. Something happening more often in past doesn't mean it has higher chance of changing in the future
Spoiler alert: your odds are still 50%
Would it just not matter since the chances reset every time? :4
Especially mathematicians know that the odd for the next surgery is still 50%.
Yes. The meme is backwards. The mathematician would know to avoid the Gambler's Fallacy.
previous outcomes do not affect the probability of future outcomes
Anyone who has taken basic probability knows the survival rate will always be 50% no matter if the last one million survived surgery
To everyone saying that the meme is wrong, think about it this way:
The problem is that a 50% industry standard doesn't mean an individual doctor's success rate matches.
Your chances are 0,0000005% if you are a mathematician
You clearly aren't...
19
The doctor did not mention whether any of his last 20 patients had that surgery.
I guess it annoys me because each new action has no relevance to previous actions, so even though the last 20 survived, it’s still a 50-50
Not how odds work. Now if you were to say what are the odds of his next 20 patients surviving with a 50% survival rate that's a different question.
I guess he improved even if statistics say otherwise
I think the joke is not about the next operation but about the fact that to get this statistic there had to be 40 operations performed hence the 50% success rate.
Probability
1/2²⁰
Gamblers fallacy.
The subsequent surgery is not dependent on the previous ones.
Sure they all survived (lived) but with some fucked up issues that may haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Ah yes, my favourite type of stochastic process, human actions.
I see
low iq human here. someone explain the joke pls
This means that If you shoot 10 people who survive the surgery your odds to survive increase.
That means he killed at least the first 20.
As a mathematician I do not approve this joke.
Not how probability works
“Fuck me up, fam…”
i would scream if i heared that let an airline say that once and no one will ever fly with them again
Can someone explain to me the context because I’m dumb.
“A very bad mathematician” There, fixed it.
No medical professional should ever legally say "don't worry"
A real mathematician would know that the past results don’t influence the current odds. Roll them dice!!
A mathematician would probably argue that the doctor should abstain from mathematical equations if he said that. If 20 in a row went well, then the previous 20 would have had to have failed - and if that is the case the doc should be overlooked for strange shit happening during surgery.
Shitty meme all if false
It should be the other way around. 50% is still going to be 50% no matter how many successful surgeries were performed before theirs.
Memes for stupid people lmao
If the likelihood is 0.5, the previous results don't change the likelihood of success.
OP doesn't know how probabilities work lol
Gamblers fallacy
"However, I am obliged by the State of California to let you know my first 100 died."
The probability of the 21st person to also survive is still 50%.
Zufall hat kein Gedächtnis. Auch die 21. Operation hat 50:50 Wahrscheinlichkeit...
You don't even need to be a mathematician to know that conditional probabilities exist.
If you take the concept of "Regression to the mean" onto account i guess this post is pretty much true.
If dude can flip a coin and land on heads 20 times then dude can do it for a 21st time
xcom players:
Mathematicians who don't know how probability works probably?
There really is an xkcd for everything.
there's a difference between performing 21 successful surgeries in a row and performing one after 20 successful surgeries in a row. the latter has still a 50% chance while the former is 0.521
May the odds ever be in your favor…..
The last 20 survived. The 20 before those did not