It's worse than that, because the 1 in 72 million calculation assumed that the contributing factors for SIDS are uniform across all children, when even then we knew absolutely that they were not. The UK, with a population of 67 million (and that's current population, not the population when she was on trial), has far fewer than 72 million households in the UK with two children, if the probability of SIDS was distributed uniformly over all children, the odds of there being a household where two kids died of SIDS in the UK at any moment in time would seem to be less likely than not.
However, we knew even then that if one baby from a particular pair of parents and a particular environment dies of SIDS, the odds of a second baby dying from SIDS with the same parents & environment increase dramatically. So the odds of two babies in the same household dying from SIDS aren't nearly 1 in 72 million.
The Prosecutor's Fallacy just makes the magnitude of the statistical miscalculation even more absurd.
Sadly, everyone, including her own defense team, thought that the correct "expert witness" for this kind of testimony would be a medical expert, rather than a statistical expert.
However, we knew even then that if one baby from a particular pair of parents and a particular environment dies of SIDS, the odds of a second baby dying from SIDS with the same parents & environment increase dramatically. So the odds of two babies in the same household dying from SIDS aren't nearly 1 in 72 million.
The Prosecutor's Fallacy just makes the magnitude of the statistical miscalculation even more absurd.
Sadly, everyone, including her own defense team, thought that the correct "expert witness" for this kind of testimony would be a medical expert, rather than a statistical expert.