This American science guru’s schoolboy pregnancy error is this week’s funniest facepalm
We have to confess we hadn’t come across Andrew Huberman before but by all accounts he’s an American neuroscientist and podcaster and an associate professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
So he knows his stuff then!
Except, well, might we suggest you watch this particular clip, of Huberman talking about fertility and the probability of getting pregnant, that kind of thing.
And it’s surely the funniest facepalm of the week.
in case youtube takes it down pic.twitter.com/wuMahKrrTs
— yan (@bcrypt) May 9, 2024
Stanford University, you say?
WHUT.
This guy is a science podcast mega guru??— Dr Adam Rutherford (@AdamRutherford) May 9, 2024
If binomial probability is kicking your arse so comprehensively, maybe it’s about time I took a good hard look at some of your research. https://t.co/Ds9LElfKM7
— James Heathers (@jamesheathers) May 9, 2024
The world’s most popular health scientist, with a PhD, who runs a research lab at Stanford, apparently. I mean, it explains the constant misinformation & misrepresentation of the literature, I guess https://t.co/w5VnTz759d
— Arthur Dent (@ArthurCDent) May 9, 2024
I live by a simple code:
Never do math on the fly in front of other people. Ever.
This is why. https://t.co/nxP8qMci4n
— Darren Dahly – on Bluesky and Substack (@statsepi) May 10, 2024
As an oncologist I think a lot about cycles
If a particular chemo kills 20% of cancer cells per cycle — aka the kill fraction — that does not, unfortunately, mean that 100% of the cancer is gone after 5 (much as I might wish it to be so)
This is just not how math & science work https://t.co/YzOnIrnTLg— Mark Lewis (@marklewismd) May 9, 2024
OMG I am wheezing at this
Dunning-Kruger in action https://t.co/Q92HqfgjiY— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) May 9, 2024
Our nation’s most prominent scientist, we are cooked https://t.co/tcYqYYsr1L
— Nick (⚠️) (@NickatFP) May 9, 2024
Just in case you were wondering …
If anyone is curious how it actually works and doesn’t want to out themselves here, the odds of a 20% event happening after X attempts is just 1-(.8^X) — aka the odds of avoiding an 80% event again and again
1 attempt: 20%
2: 36%
3: 49%
4: 59%
5: 67%— Christian Keil (@pronounced_kyle) May 9, 2024
And finally, back to the podcaster himself, who later issued a correction.
Please note: at the timestamp related to cumulative probability of getting pregnant, I misspoke – my apologies. The data in the following graph are correct but the “120%” is not. The link to the data.
And cumulative probability over 6 cycles is ~80% (see plot at link). For the math.
Source @bcrypt
