概率论札记 - 2 - 用贝叶斯定理来讨论“医疗诊断的可靠性到底有多少”

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只有愚蠢的人才会相信眼睛看到的。
——安·兰德

故事要从一道贝叶斯定理的简单习题讲起。大意是艾滋病患病率为万分之一，误诊率为5%，患有艾滋病者被诊断出来的概率为99%，请问在这样的设定下如果你被诊断为艾滋病阳性，那么你患艾滋病的概率是多少，原题如下——

Problem Denoted blood is screened for AIDS. Suppose the test has 99% accuracy, and that one in ten thousand people in your age group are HIV positive. The test has a 5% false positive rating, as well. Suppose the test screens you as positive. What is the probability you have AIDS? Is it 99%?

Solution: E_1=”test positive”, E_2=”test negative”. A_1=”You have AIDS”, A_2=”You don’t have AIDS”. Now we know $P(E_1|A_1)=99\%$, we need to find $P(A_1|E_1)$. Since “one in ten thousand people in your age group are HIV positive”, $P(A_1)=1/10000$.”5% false positive rating” means $P(E_1|A_2)=5\%$. By Bayes’ Theorem

P(A1|E1)==≈P(E1|A