Discussion 1

What are some benefits of using decision trees? In what ways can decision trees be used for
business decisions? Name some real-world examples.

There are some benefits with using decision trees.  Decision trees are simple and easy to
understand.  They can be created with little data preparation and can be used for both categories and
numerical data.  These tests can possibly be used to confirm a model using statistical tests and also
performs extremely well with large amounts of data in a short period of time.

Decision trees are a great resource for business decisions.  They can help sharpen the decision
making process by helping people make up their minds and collect thoughts in an open forum. 
These thoughts get outlined in the branches and help connect all ideas together.  It provides an open
outlook to the problem or topic and provides different solutions and outcomes.  It also can be used
to forecast potential future events.  Decision trees are a graphical representation of both a path taken
and path not taken, and potential results and outcomes from these ideas.

Discussion 2

How does the science of probability affect decisions? Why?

Probability is the relative possibility or frequency that an event occurs.  Decisions are made based
mostly on the likelihood of the outcomes.  If two possible choices will result in similarly favorable
outcomes, you would be much more likely to make the decision that has the higher likelihood of
success.