Uncertainty, Probability and Prognosis

Abstract

All eminent exponents of the probability theory believed that there is a certain order in the world, although they gave different explanations to its origins. Advocates of the classic conception held that uncertainty and probability, which is closely connected to it, depend on our incomplete and inadequate knowledge of the world. Modern scientists are more prone to suggest that uncertainty, as well as certainty, belong to the aspects of the contradictory unity of the world which owes its very existence to the interaction of accidental events of various nature. Although the methods used by modern science give the possibility of providing ever more precise predictions and, therefore, of overcoming the risks, both the uncertainty and the risk nonetheless remain the inevitable companions of any human activity. However strange it may seem, it is the society where uncertainty and risk keep increasingly growing in quantity and insofar as the gravity of their consequences is regarded. In such conditions, the problem of uncertainty, risk and the methods of their prognostication take on special urgency.