If a scholar says there is an 80% chance that Shakespeare wrote the play Macbeth, what does this most likely mean?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The task presents a question about how to interpret a probability statement regarding authorship. 
Option 1: 'By the definition of what Macbeth is, there is an 80% chance that Shakespeare wrote it.' This is conflating content or genre with probability; it suggests a definitional certainty rather than expressing a degree of belief about authorship. It doesn’t capture the idea that the 80% reflects a scholar's confidence, not a property of the play itself. 
Option 2: 'The scholar’s degree of belief that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth is 80%'. This is the correct interpretation in a probabilistic sense: the statistic communicates the scholar’s subjective probability or degree of belief that Shakespeare is the author, given the evidence. It treats probability as a measure of belief about a proposition, not a claim about factual frequency or a process. 
Option 3: '80% of scholars think that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth'. This misreads the statement as a population frequency or consensus among scholars, implying a survey result rather than an individual degree of belief. A single 80% belief by one scholar does not imply 80% of all scholars share that belief. 
Option 4: 'If you were able to run simulations of history, then in 80% of the simulations Shakespeare writes Macbeth'. This frames the probability as a long-run frequency outcome from simulations of history, which is a modeling approach rather than a direct expression of a scholar’s current belief about authorship. It adds an artificial methodological layer that isn’t inherent in the original statement. 
Option 5: '80% of the words in Macbeth were written by Shakespeare'. This is a completely different and implausible claim about authorship attribution at the word level, which is not what a probability of authorship conveys.
Overall, the only interpretation that aligns with probabilistic language about belief in a proposition is Option 2, while the other options misinterpret what the 80% statistic is signaling or rely on a different inferential framework.

ATHK1X01 Mastery Quiz 03

If a scholar says there is an 80% chance that Shakespeare wrote the play Macbeth, what does this most likely mean?

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