Stimuli-responsive nanoparticles, nanogels and capsules for integrated multifunctional intelligent systems (Review, 2010)

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In this review we provide an analysis of recent literature reports on the synthesis and applications of stimuli-responsive polymeric and hybrid nanostructured particles in a range of sizes from nanometers to a few micrometers: nano- and microgels, core–shell structures, polymerosomes, block-copolymer micelles, and more complex architectures. The review consists of two major parts: synthesis and applications of nanoparticles in colloidal dispersions, thin films, delivery devices and sensors. We also broadly discuss potential directions for further developments of this research area.

Motornov, M., Roiter, Y., Tokarev, I., & Minko, S.. (2010). Stimuli-responsive nanoparticles, nanogels and capsules for integrated multifunctional intelligent systems. Progress in Polymer Science, 35(1–2), 174–211.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.progpolymsci.2009.10.004
DOI URL
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Buwalda, S. J., Boere, K. W. M., Dijkstra, P. J., Feijen, J., Vermonden, T., & Hennink, W. E.. (2014). Hydrogels in a historical perspective: From simple networks to smart materials. Journal of Controlled Release, 190, 254–273.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2014.03.052
DOI URL
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See also:
Fluorescent probe-encapsulated smart nanohydrogel to enhance sensitivity toward hydrogen peroxide in living cells (Publication Date, Feb. 2023)
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143720822008609

  • Advances in the development of cyclodextrin-based nanogels/microgels for biomedical applications: Drug delivery and beyond 2022, Carbohydrate Polymers
  • Formation of ultrathin scarf-like micelles, ultrathin disk-like micelles and spherical micelles by self-assembly of polyurethane diblock copolymers 2022, Journal of Molecular Liquids
  • Inorganic/organic hybrid nanoparticles synthesized in a two-step radiation-driven process 2022, Radiation Physics and Chemistry
  • The influence of the functional end groups on the properties of polylactide-based materials 2022, Progress in Polymer Science
  • How molecular interactions tune the characteristic time of nanocomposite colloidal sensors 2022, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science

Alfred Kinsey – Sexual behavior in children (empirical sexology)

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kinseyinstitute.org
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey
Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Institute have caused the direct and indirect abuse of thousands of children since the publishing of his first books on human sexuality. Kinsey experimented with 2-month-old babies. In addition, a 4-year-old child reportedly had 26 orgasms in 24 hours. This is an all day, all night experiment involving sexual experimentation/torture on children. Kinsey received many awards and even appeared on the cover of Time magazine when the second book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, was published was published in 1953. The media coverage was unprecedented for a book (Gathorne-Hardy, 1998) and has probably only been surpassed in modern times by J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Over the decades, Kinsey’s books, his his sexual study, his research team, his Institute for Sexual Research and and more recently the film about his life, have all been the subject of considerable controversy, admiration and anger.

“If a child were not culturally conditioned, it is doubtful if it would be disturbed by sexual approaches…It is difficult to understand why a child, except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at having its genitalia touched, or disturbed at seeing the genitalia of other person, or disturbed at even more specific sexual contacts”
~ Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. 120-22

“There are, of course, instances of adults who have done physical damage to children with whom they have attempted sexual contacts…But these cases are in the minority, and the public should learn to distinguish such serious contacts from other adult contacts which are not likely to do the child any appreciable harm if the child’s parents do not become disturbed.
~ Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. 120-22

Chapter 5 of Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behaviour In The Human Male (1948) is entitled “Early Sexual Growth and Activity”. Included within it are the details of sexual experiments involving between 317 and 1,7461 male children 2, 5 months to 14 years old.
2. These experiments involved “manual and oral stimulation” of the children’s genitals by adults. In a detailed table entitled “Examples of Multiple Orgasms in Pre-Adolescent Males” [Table 34], Kinsey detailed the time taken by the babies and children to achieve “multiple orgasms”. The timings were made with a stopwatch.

mc kinsey

See also: Tate, T. (Producer). (1998). Secret History: Kinsey’s Paedophiles [Television series episode]. Yorkshire Television.

Abstract: Following on from the discussion on ‘making sense’ of paedophilia through historical, cross-cultural and cross-species examples, this chapter now turns to one specific body of data and analysis developed by the biologist Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues at Indiana University and set out in a key text published in 1948, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Since its first publication, Kinsey’s work has been the focus of controversy and misinterpretation and it is therefore essential to return to this famous but little-read original source-material for analysis. The impact that this work has had on modern Western society has been profound, and the extraordinary fame of Kinsey’s study on sexual behaviour has recently been revived in the popular imagination by the Hollywood biopic Kinsey (2004), written and directed by Bill Condon and starring Liam Neeson and Laura Linney. The unique data from Kinsey’s survey of sexual behaviour — and the manner in which they were published and discussed both in Kinsey’s original book and in Condon’s film almost sixty years later — not only provide us with a lens through which to examine changes in attitude to the idea of adult-child sexual contact but also show us how such changes in attitude were effected.

Goode, S. D.. (2011). ‘Early Sexual Growth and Activity’: The Influence of Kinsey. In Paedophiles in Society (pp. 86–125). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1057/9780230306745_4
DOI URL
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Further References

Escoffier, J.. (2020). Kinsey, psychoanalysis and the theory of sexuality. Sexologies

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.sexol.2020.03.005
DOI URL
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Bullough, V. L.. (1998). Alfred kinsey and the kinsey report: Historical overview and lasting contributions. Journal of Sex Research

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/00224499809551925
DOI URL
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Fairyington, S.. (2008). Kinsey, bisexuality, and the case against Dualism. Journal of Bisexuality

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/15299710802501876
DOI URL
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Drucker, D. J.. (2010). Male sexuality and Alfred Kinsey’s 0-6 scale: Toward “a sound understanding of the realities of sex”. Journal of Homosexuality

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2010.508314
DOI URL
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Amazon Web Services Cloud Platform: Termes of service 42.10

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Clause 42.10 of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) terms of service states:

42.10. Acceptable Use; Safety-Critical Systems. Your use of the Lumberyard Materialsmust comply with the AWS Acceptable Use Policy. The Lumberyard Materials are not intended for use with life-critical or safety-critical systems, such as use in operation of medical equipment, automated transportation systems, autonomous vehicles, aircraft or air traffic control, nuclear facilities, manned spacecraft, or military use in connection with live combat. However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.

Amazon changed the terms of service. However, the older version from August 2022 can be found in the internet Archive (wayback machine):
web.archive.org/web/20220820040953/https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/
***
Amazon Lumberyard is a now-superseded freeware cross-platform game engine developed by Amazon and based on CryEngine (initially released in 2002), which was licensed from Crytek in 2015. In July 2021, Amazon and the Linux Foundation announced that parts of the engine would be used to create a new open source game engine called Open 3D Engine, which would replace it. A new Open 3D Foundation, run by the Linux Foundation, will manage the new engine, which will be licensed under the open source Apache 2.0 license. The new engine is reportedly partially based on Lumberyard but with many parts rewritten, and is considered a new engine. The Lumberyard engine features integration with Amazon Web Services to allow developers to build or host their games on Amazon’s servers, as well as support for livestreaming via Twitch. Additionally, the engine includes Twitch ChatPlay, allowing viewers of the Twitch stream to influence the game through the associated chat, a method of play inspired by the Twitch Plays Pokémon phenomenon. The source code is available to end users with limitations: Users may not publicly release the Lumberyard engine source code or use it to release their own game engine. Lumberyard launched on February 9, 2016 alongside GameLift, a fee-based managed service for deploying and hosting multiplayer games, intended to allow developers the easy development of games that attract “large and vibrant communities of fans.”[14] As of March 2018, the software is currently in beta status and can be used to build games for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with limited support for iOS and Android and support for macOS being planned for future releases. Virtual reality integration was added in Beta 1.3, allowing developers to build games supporting devices like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.Despite being based on the architecture of Crytek’s CryEngine, the engine has been developed to use many of its own custom-developed systems, some of which are in a preview mode. A few of these systems include the Component Entity System, Fur Shader, Modular Gems (which allows developers to either create their own assets or add existing assets to their games), and the Script Canvas.

A Conversation with Russel Means

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Prof. Michael A. Persinger: The connectedness of everything

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Further References

Persinger, M. A.. (2001). The neuropsychiatry of paranormal experiences. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1176/jnp.13.4.515
DOI URL
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Persinger, M. A.. (2009). Are our brains structured to avoid refutations of belief in God? An experimental study. Religion

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.religion.2008.05.005
DOI URL
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Persinger, M. A., & Valliant, P. M.. (1985). Temporal lobe signs and reports of subjective paranormal experiences in a normal population: A replication. Perceptual and Motor Skills

Plain numerical DOI: 10.2466/pms.1985.60.3.903
DOI URL
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Persinger, M. A., Koren, S. A., Larsson, M., Larhammar, D., Fredrikson, M., & Granqvist, P.. (2005). A response to Granqvist et al. “Sensed presence and mystical experiences are predicted by suggestibility, not by the application of transcranial weak magnetic fields” (multiple letters). Neuroscience Letters

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2005.03.060
DOI URL
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Persinger, M. A.. (2014). Thank you, Epilepsy & Behavior. Epilepsy and Behavior

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2014.09.052
DOI URL
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Persinger, M. A.. (1996). Enhancement of limbic seizures by nocturnal application of experimental magnetic fields that simulate the magnitude and morphology of increases in geomagnetic activity. International Journal of Neuroscience

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3109/00207459608986718
DOI URL
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Ray Kurzweil: Nanobots In Our Bloodstream – Connecting the Brain to WIFI

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Further References

Krüger, O.. (2021). “The Singularity is near!” Visions of Artificial Intelligence in Posthumanism and Transhumanism. International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence

Plain numerical DOI: 10.9781/ijimai.2021.07.004
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Quarterly, M. K.. (2011). IT growth and global change : A conversation with Ray Kurzweil. McKinsey Quarterly
Shermer, M.. (2011). Transcendent Man The Life and Ideas of Ray Kurzweil. Science
McGettigan, T.. (2020). It’s Alive!! Ray Kurzweil, AI, and Frankentelligence. SSRN Electronic Journal

Plain numerical DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3676548
DOI URL
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Berman, A.. (2016). Technology Feels Like It’s Accelerating — Because It Actually Is. Singularity Hub
Cole-Turner, R.. (2012). The singularity and the rapture: Transhumanist and popular christian views of the future. Zygon

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2012.01293.x
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Geraci, R. M.. (2010). The popular appeal of Apocalyptic AI. Zygon

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2010.01146.x
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Koch, C.. (2013). The End of the Beginning for the Brain. Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1126/science.1233813
DOI URL
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Dark Winter: A Bioterrorism Exercise in 2001

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A two-day bioterrorism exercise, code-named “Dark Winter”, was held at Andrews Air Force Base, Washington D.C., June 22-23, 2001. Developed and produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, and ANSER Institute for Homeland Security. Sponsorship was provided by the McCormick Tribune Foundation and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT).

“Dark Winter” is a role-playing exercise based on a fictional bioterrorist attack on the U.S. Former senior government officials play the roles of National Security Council (NSC) members, with former Senator Sam Nunn as the U.S. President, former Central Intelligence Agency director R. James Woolsey as the head of CIA, Jerry Hauer as FEMA director, and Dr. Margaret Hamburg as Secretary of Health & Human Services. Medical experts included Dr. Tara O’Toole of Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies.

This is a fictional scenario. The background to the story goes like this: six months earlier, the U.S. lifted sanctions against Iraq and ceased enforcement of the “no-fly zones.” Since then, Saddam Hussein has aggressively worked to strengthen his military forces, including imports of equipment and material that could be used to produce chemical and biological weapons. Several top scientists from the former Soviet bioweapons program have been recruited to Iraq. Al Daura, a vaccine plant outside Baghdad, closed by U.N. inspectors after the Gulf War, is now back in full production. Officially it manufactures vaccines against Foot & Mouth disease, but western intelligence sources suspect that it’s actually weaponizing germs for warfare.

In the scenario, Iraq has recently moved large military forces into offensive positions near the Kuwaiti border, officially as a part of a routine military exercise. Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have asked for American, British and France military forces to defend the area against a possible attack. Russia and China oppose Allied troops.

The role-playing begins: as the U.S. National Security Council discusses the Iraq-Kuwait situation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports one confirmed and twenty suspected cases of smallpox in Oklahoma City. Presumably, this is a bioterrorism attack, with the virus deliberately introduced.

Emergency rooms in Oklahoma City soon become extremely crowded, while many hospital staff don’t show up for work the day after the first case is reported on CNN. The Governor of Oklahoma requests that each and every one of the 3.5 million citizens of the state receive the smallpox vaccine within the next 72 hours. The Oklahoma National Guard is put on alert. The Governor declares a state of emergency, and requests that the President invoke the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. (The Stafford Act provides extra assistance to state and local authorities in catastrophic disasters, and also allows the national government broader powers to respond to the crisis, such as the use of active-duty soldiers.)

The exercise outlines a fictional scenario where Iraq has launched a covert bioterrorism attack with smallpox against shopping malls in three U.S. states — Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Nine days after the presumed exposure there are 20 lab-confirmed and 14 suspected cases in Oklahoma City, 9 suspected cases in Georgia and 7 in Pennsylvania.

For the purposes of this exercise, the U.S. stock of smallpox vaccine is estimated at 12 million doses. (In reality, the U.S. had stockpiled 15.4 million doses, and recently it was discovered that more than half of the doses had been destroyed, or were of questionable quality. Experts estimate that less than 7 million people could be vaccinated as of 2001.)

In the exercise, the total world supply is estimated at 60 million doses, with half in South Africa. There are concerns that some non-U.S. vaccine may be ineffective, and may also have a higher rate of side effects.

Initially 100,000 doses of vaccine are released for Oklahoma, with the same amounts prepared to be sent to Pennsylvania and Georgia, pending lab confirmation of suspected cases in those states. Because of the limited vaccine stock, the decision is made to minimize the use of vaccine. The only civilians to be vaccinated are close contacts, healthcare personnel and investigators in case states. 2.5 million doses are reserved for the military and the National Guard.

At the early stages of the outbreak smallpox patients and suspected cases are isolated at hospitals and quarantine centers, but quarantine is not forcibly imposed. With the numbers of cases rising, some states have attempted to keep smallpox patients and contacts in their homes, but it is difficult to supply food and supportive care to those affected. The Department of Justice has received credible claims that individuals with symptoms similar to smallpox have been illegally arrested or locked up in designated “isolation wards.” Some otherwise healthy people have been placed in quarantine units without vaccination — together with people who have the disease.


Man with smallpox. Photo: CDC/NIP/Barbara Rice.

As the scenario progresses, two weeks after the presumed attack there are 2000 cases in 15 states, with 300 deaths. A total of three million doses of smallpox vaccine have been sent to Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Shipments of 500,000 doses delivered to each of 12 affected states. Five days after the first case was diagnosed only 1.25 million doses of vaccine remain.

TV stations show footage of a mother in tears, pleading for vaccine, while being pushed back by riot police. The National Guard has been called in to suppress violence at vaccination clinics, where angry crowds demand vaccination. Educational institutions, sporting events and other public gatherings have been closed. Some states have closed transportation links, including airports. The Governor of Texas has decided to use his emergency powers to order Texas National Guard Units to assist the State Police in suspending individuals from Oklahoma trying to enter Texas without proof of recent smallpox vaccination. Many countries have closed their borders to unvaccinated travelers from the U.S. The economical impact might result in billions of dollars in international trade losses. Food shortages are reported from some cities. Dangerous misinformation and rumors are spread on the Internet and in other mass media.

A National Security Council committee of medical and public health experts make recommendations on disease containment, including:

  • “mandatory isolation of all smallpox victims in hospitals or preferably dedicated facilities”
  • support from the Department of Defense to run “dedicated smallpox treatment centers”
  • voluntary home isolation of people who have been in contact with smallpox cases, with DoD and National Guard staff to provide food and medical monitoring.
  • federal travel restrictions
  • cancellation all public gatherings in states with smallpox cases

By day six of the crisis, vaccine supplies are dwindling. An additional supply, from the United Kingdom (500,000 doses) and Russia (4 million doses), last for only a couple of days. The NSC develops a plan to use private pharmaceutical facilities in the U.S. to produce about 12 million doses of an unlicensed smallpox vaccine per month. But first delivery would be 5 weeks from the current time.

Near the end of the role-playing exercise, about three weeks after the fictional bioterrorism attack, a second generation of cases begins to appear. During the past 48 hours, the number of cases has skyrocketed with 14,000 new smallpox patients confirmed in 25 states, among them the large population centers of New York, California and Florida.

Smallpox is an extremely contagious disease. A single case can infect 10 to 20 others, and this can go on for generation after generation (or wave after wave), with a rapidly increasing number of infections at each step. The second generation, outlined in this exercise, would be followed by a third, a fourth and so on.

The exercise closes with a simulated projection of generations 3 and 4. The participants project 30,000 new cases and 10,000 deaths at the end of generation 2, followed by 300,000 cases two and a half weeks later (end of generation 3), and 3 million cases, with 1 million deaths, an the end of generation 4.

With a vaccine supply enough to immunize less than 5 percent of the population, the infection rate would continue to increase tenfold every two to three weeks, according to medical experts. Continuing this grim calculation, that would mean 30 million cases, with 10 million deaths in the fifth wave. And then, two to three weeks later, a final wave sweeping the nation and killing off nearly one out of every three Americans.

Lessons From “Dark Winter”

The “Dark Winter” role-playing exercise brought to light major weaknesses in the U.S. health care system:

  • U.S. doctors and nurses have no smallpox experience
  • no rapid diagnosis of the disease
  • no treatment available for those infected
  • a lack of protective clothing, masks, gloves, and gowns
  • isolation rooms at hospitals for highly contagious smallpox patients is in short supply
  • no surge capacity; lack of staff and hospital beds
  • the public health system and hospitals get overwhelmed by the enormous increase in patient demand
  • insufficient supply of smallpox vaccine

The exercise also exposed many serious weaknesses in U.S. bioterrorism preparedness. The most serious weakness is probably the insufficient supply of smallpox vaccine. Without a much larger supply of vaccine, the contagion would continue to run its course, until there are no more victims to be found.

“If there is only one dose of smallpox vaccine for every 23 Americans, whom do you vaccinate?” asked former senator Sam Nunn (D) in a testimony before the House Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations.

Frank Keating, the governor of Oklahoma, who played himself in the exercise, said “Vaccination cannot stop the spread if you don’t have enough of it.”

The drill also raises questions about civil liberties in a time of bioterrorism crisis. “Do you seize hotels and convert them to hospitals?,” asked Nunn. “Do you close borders and block all travel? What level of force do you use to keep someone sick with smallpox in isolation?”

Another important lesson, echoed by multiple other exercises and studies, is that state and local public health agencies don’t have the necessary resources to handle a bioterrorism attack.

“We have a fragmented and underfunded public health system — at the local, state and federal level — that does not allow us to effectively detect and track disease outbreaks in real time,” said Keating.

When it comes to a bioterrorist attack, too much focus has been placed on the military and too little on the public health side, said Tara O’Toole, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, who portrayed a top federal health official in the exercise.

The CDC has a budget of only $40 million each year to help modernize local public health agencies with bioterrorism training, updated labs and surveillance systems. And while last year Congress backed an increase to $500 million per year, the money has not been approved, said O’Toole.

The simulation also exposed “fault lines” and “disconnects” between local, state and federal officials, raising serious questions about who would spearhead activities in the event of an attack.

“Our Lack of Preparation is a Real Emergency”

“Dark Winter showed just how unprepared we are to deal with bioterrorism,” said Jerome M. Hauer, the former head of emergency management in New York City and now a bioterrorism consultant to Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. “It pointed out that there were significant challenges to all levels of government.”

“I was honored to play the part of the President in the exercise Dark Winter”, said Sam Nunn in his House Committee testimony.

“You often don’t know what you don’t know until you’ve been tested. And it’s a lucky thing for the United States that — as the emergency broadcast network used to say: ‘this is just a test, this is not a real emergency.’ But Mr. Chairman, our lack of preparation is a real emergency.”

Source: wearcam.org/decon/dark_winter_scen_smallpox.htm

Data dredging (aka. p-hacking)

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“A well-wrapped statistic is better than Hitler’s “big lie” it misleads, yet it cannot be pinned on you.”

~ Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics

 

Data dredging (also known as data snooping or p-hacking)[1][a] is the misuse of data analysis to find patterns in data that can be presented as statistically significant, thus dramatically increasing and understating the risk of false positives. This is done by performing many statistical tests on the data and only reporting those that come back with significant results.[2]

The process of data dredging involves testing multiple hypotheses using a single data set by exhaustively searching—perhaps for combinations of variables that might show a correlation, and perhaps for groups of cases or observations that show differences in their mean or in their breakdown by some other variable.

Cognitive biases (availability heuristic, framing, base-rate neglect, false positive paradox)

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“Most people will give proportionally more weight to a dramatic risk of dying from an airplane crash, for example, than to the risk of dying from lung cancer due to smoking, even though the latter is more likely. Drama, symbolism and identifiable victims, particularly children or celebrities, the science writer said, also make a risk more memorable.

Availability means that events that are easily remembered or imagined are more accessible or “available” to people, so that their frequencies are overestimated (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973). If, for example, a particular risk has recently or often been reported in the popular press, people may well overestimate its frequency. A science writer commented that people pay more attention to dramatic, new, or unknown risks or risks conveyed within the context of a personal story.

Framing, the way in which information is presented or the context into which it is placed, affects how risk communication messages are received. Studies show that a different framing of the same options can induce people to change their preferences among options (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973; Lichtenstein and Slovic, 1971). This is known as a preference reversal. For example, the data on lung cancer treatment suggest that surgical treatment has a higher initial mortality rate but radiation has a higher 5 year mortality rate. In one illustration, 10 percent of surgery patients die during treatment, 32 percent will have died one year after surgery, and 66 will have died by five years. For radiation, 23 percent die by one year and 78 die by five years. When people are given these mortality statistics, they tend to be evenly split between preferring radiation and preferring surgery. When the same statistics are given as life expectancies (6.1 years for surgery and 4.7 years for radiation) there is an overwhelming preference for surgery (McNeil et al., 1982).

How information is framed can also affect whether people allow an omission bias to be a prime motivator of a decision not to vaccinate. One study of university students found that when the issue of responsibility was removed, subjects were more likely to opt for vaccination. Responsibility was removed by reframing the question as “if you were the child, what decision would you like to see made” (Baron, 1992).

Other research shows that people tend to have a preference for eliminating risk and for maintaining the status quo (Thaler, 1980; Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988). Consequently, people often have an aversion to increasing the probability of one type of risk to reduce that of another, even by the same amount. They may even prefer a riskier situation over a less risky situation if the former maintains the status quo (Fischhoff et al., 1981).”

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233844/

The base rate fallacy, also called base rate neglect[1] or base rate bias, is a type of fallacy in which people tend to ignore the base rate (i.e., general prevalence) in favor of the individuating information (i.e., information pertaining only to a specific case). Base rate neglect is a specific form of the more general extension neglect.

 

False positive paradox. This paradox describes situations where there are more false positive test results than true positives. For example, if a facial recognition camera can identify wanted criminals 99% accurately, but analyzes 10,000 people a day, the high accuracy is outweighed by the number of tests, and the program’s list of criminals will likely have far more false positives than true. The probability of a positive test result is determined not only by the accuracy of the test but also by the characteristics of the sampled population.[3] When the prevalence, the proportion of those who have a given condition, is lower than the test’s false positive rate, even tests that have a very low risk of giving a false positive in an individual case will give more false than true positives overall.[4] The paradox surprises most people.[5]

It is especially counter-intuitive when interpreting a positive result in a test on a low-prevalence population after having dealt with positive results drawn from a high-prevalence population.[4] If the false positive rate of the test is higher than the proportion of the new population with the condition, then a test administrator whose experience has been drawn from testing in a high-prevalence population may conclude from experience that a positive test result usually indicates a positive subject, when in fact a false positive is far more likely to have occurred.

There is considerable debate in psychology on the conditions under which people do or do not appreciate base rate information.[15][16] Researchers in the heuristics-and-biases program have stressed empirical findings showing that people tend to ignore base rates and make inferences that violate certain norms of probabilistic reasoning, such as Bayes’ theorem. The conclusion drawn from this line of research was that human probabilistic thinking is fundamentally flawed and error-prone.[17] Other researchers have emphasized the link between cognitive processes and information formats, arguing that such conclusions are not generally warranted.[18][19]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy