Failure to account for base rate, also referred to as base rate neglect or base rate fallacy, is the habit of jumping to conclusions without factoring in all the relevant, important data. People often try to determine the likelihood of an event without taking into account the ‘base rate’ – the statistical information that can help them make an informed decision. Base Rate Fallacy Explained To be clear, people do not make any decision without considering certain factors or data. The problem, however, is that the data they take into account is not relevant in many cases. As a result, any decision they make is likely to be erroneous. Let us consider a person named X