The article discusses the importance of critical thinking in interpreting medical test results, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights the inherent inaccuracies in medical tests, typically falling between 90-99% accuracy. The author explains that a common misconception is equating the accuracy of a test with the likelihood of actual disease presence in positive results. Instead, critical thinking must be applied to correctly understand the relationship between test results (effects) and disease presence (causes). Misunderstanding conditional probabilities can lead to incorrect assumptions about one’s health.
A 90% accuracy of a COVID-19 test suggests that those who possess the disease will test positive 90% of the time, not that 90% of positives have the disease.
We often assume that a test’s accuracy directly correlates to the likelihood of a positive result indicating an actual infection, but this misunderstands conditional probability.
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