Dark uncertainty

Abstract

There is now abundant evidence that we analytical chemists are tending to underestimate the uncertainty of our measurements. There are two main underlying reasons for this. One reason is technical: it is easy to overlook important contributions to uncertainty, so the models used to estimate uncertainty may be incomplete. The second reason may be psychological: there may be an unconscious selection bias in the information we use to assess uncertainty. What should we do about this missing, ‘dark’, uncertainty?