Opinion: What diagnostic tests can teach about spotting public fraud
If the Trump administration truly wants to reduce waste and fraud in government spending, they need some basic lessons from probability, statistics, and medical tests.
There’s a thought exercise I like to do with my statistics students. Imagine a doctor who throws away all the swabs and just diagnoses every patient as sick. In one sense, the approach is accurate: No sick patient goes undiagnosed. If it’s harmless to tell people they’re sick, no problem.
But it’s not harmless: Patients and families may face undue stress, isolate themselves, or spend a lot of time and money on unnecessary tests and treatments. This can become a big problem, especially if not that many people are truly sick. I use this example that is so extreme as to be outrageous — no doctor would do such a thing! I never thought a president and his advisors would use that exact approach.
