I’ll take an intermediate position: most readers will at least unconsciously infer an uncertainty range when presented with a point estimate only. If my mechanic tells me their best estimate for fixing my car is $1000 without saying more, I should understand from that $1200 is a reasonable possibility but would legitimately be upset if presented with a $2000 bill even if $1000 were provably the mean, median, mode, and likely outcome.
Here, I think the reader is on notice that estimating cost to save a life is likely to involve some imprecision, plus it is presented as an estimate, it is linked to a more detailed explanation, and it is rounded off.
There would be cases in which more should be said about the uncertainty range, for instance if it were between $500 and $50K! In that kind of scenario, you would need to say more to clue the reader into the degree of imprecision.
I’ll take an intermediate position: most readers will at least unconsciously infer an uncertainty range when presented with a point estimate only. If my mechanic tells me their best estimate for fixing my car is $1000 without saying more, I should understand from that $1200 is a reasonable possibility but would legitimately be upset if presented with a $2000 bill even if $1000 were provably the mean, median, mode, and likely outcome.
Here, I think the reader is on notice that estimating cost to save a life is likely to involve some imprecision, plus it is presented as an estimate, it is linked to a more detailed explanation, and it is rounded off.
There would be cases in which more should be said about the uncertainty range, for instance if it were between $500 and $50K! In that kind of scenario, you would need to say more to clue the reader into the degree of imprecision.
Agreed!