Where to reach me: PH 2212; phone: 3376; homepage: http://www.siue.edu/~evailat
. Click on "Courses" and then on "Probability and Decision"
to find this very syllabus.
Office Hours: MW1:00-1:30; T 5:00-6:00, and by appointment if needed.
I) Course objectives: to introduce the student to the basic concepts of probability, decision theory, game theory and some of their philosohical implications.
II) Texts:
1) B. Skirms, Choice and Chance 4th edition (Wadsworth). This is a
rental text [S].
2) Material to be downloaded from my homepage. If you have no web access
at home, get a free account on campus.
III) Course outline:
weeks 1-2: Probability and trees. Download
Probability. Download probability
exercises. A bit of theory: probability
spaces. Peruse S 109-127. Introduction to the course.
End of week 2: First quiz
weeks 3-4: Conditional probability and some common pitfalls in using it. Download more probability exercises. Here are more exercises. For fun, Play Let's Make A Deal; Download Tests. Download Causation vs. diagnosis.
End of week 4: Second quiz
week 5: New Evidence and the testing of theories. Download Inductive arguments; Testing theories. Peruse S 151-56. Continuous uniform distribution. Some exercises. Third quiz
week 6: Two new concepts, normalization (download) and probability density (download). Two applications of probability to genetics (download 1 and 2).
week 7 Probability in quantum mechanics (downoad). Bets: Download bets. S 128-35. Midterm
week 8-9: Decision, risk and some conceptual problems. Download Decision
theory;
Download decision
theory exercises. Download Utility
End of week 9: Fourth quiz
weeks 10-11: download Classical Game Theory. Some game theory exercises.
End of week 11: Fifth quiz
weeks 12-13: Download Evolutionary Game Theory. Some evolutionary game theory exercises. Download Behavioral Game Theory. Watch M. Nowak's lecture at Harvard.
End of week 13: Sixth quiz.
A few words about averages; median, mean, and variance. Download Statistics.
week 14: Evolutionary game theory in action. A natural history of morality and religion?
week 15: What is probability?
End of week 15: Seventh quiz
IV) Course requirements and grades
1) Seven quizzes, some take-home, some in-class, each worth 5% of the course
grade. Their dates are given in the course outline. No make up quizzes will
be given unless in extreme circumstances.
2) A set of homeworks, handed out in class. Doing them will push up your grade
in borderline cases.
3 ) A midterm exam, worth 30% of the course grade.
4 ) A final exam, covering the main topics of the course, worth 35% of
the course grade.
5 ) There are 200 possible points in this class. Usually, after some curving,
the correspondence between points and course grades is as follows: 200-175:
A; 174-145: B; 144-120: C; 119-100: D; below 100: E.
V) Academic policies
1) Cheating of any kind will be dealt with according to the draconian
guidelines of CAS .
2) Students are responsible for knowing what has been said in class, including
announcements. Quizzes may be based on classroom discussions not derived from
any written material. If for any reason you miss some classes, make sure to
find out what has been done in class.
VI) Some advice
Although this is a 200 level class, some students find it difficult. Hence,
if you want to do well, you must put real work into it. This means reading
(not just glancing at) the material assigned and doing the practice-exercises
and the homeworks regularly. If in spite of your efforts you are having
difficulties, come and see me as soon as possible.