SOLUTION: A medical researcher wants to find the probability that a heart patient will survive for one year. He reasons that there are 2 outcomes (survives, does not survive), so the probabi

Question 566732: A medical researcher wants to find the probability that a heart patient will survive for one year. He reasons that there are 2 outcomes (survives, does not survive), so the probability is 1/2. Is he correct? What important information is not included in his reasoning process?
Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
The important information left out may be external influences from the environment (eg: stress or work levels on the heart) or internal influences due to biology (eg: genetics or defects of the heart). Health and drug intake are other big factors which play into this as well.

So this simply means that the answer is most likely not 1/2 because there's a lot more involved than simply flipping a coin (between "survives" and "does not survive"). For example, say the patient has poor health, drinks alcohol, has a high level of stress, and has other medications. To say that there's a 50-50 chance of survival is assuming that he has just as good a chance as someone who's really healthy, has little to no stress, and doesn't consume drugs or alcohol. However, we know that's not the case at all, so the probability is simply not 1/2.
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