Chance and Coincidences on Newstalk’s Futureproof
Coincidences do happen—but what do they mean to us, and just what are the chances?
This was great fun to take part in! Futureproof is Newstalk’s science programme hosted by Jonathan McCrea. A special feature episode on Chance and Coincidence (“Chances”) was recorded with Prof. Brian Hughes (Professor of Psychology at the University of Galway) and me.
Brian explored why humans naturally seek patterns and assign meaning to random events, after which I worked through back-of-the-envelope probability calculations for coincidence stories sent in by listeners. Because the marginal probability of any hyper-specific sequence of events is tiny once exact times and incidental details are included, I stripped each story back to a baseline “non-coincidence” version and estimated the conditional odds of the surprising overlap that made the story worth telling. Hopefully the result was entertaining, illuminating, or perhaps both!
- Listen to the episode: Futureproof — Chances