Braun And The False Positive Paradox

Via The Big W:

↵↵The false positive paradox is a statistical result where false positive tests are more probable than true positive tests, occurring when the overall population has a low incidence of a condition and the incidence rate is lower than the false positive rate.

↵↵In other words, if the incidence of steroid use among Major League ballplayers is lower than the test’s false positive rate, a majority of players who test positive will, in fact, be clean.

↵There’s obviously a lot we don’t yet know about the Braun case, but I suspect this information might be useful in the coming days and weeks.