Re: News Article: Scary? You Bet It Is

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com>]

>I read this opinion pieced in today's Washington Post, and thought I should 

>pass it along.  If you substitute nuclear power for shark, I think you will 

>find the parallels interesting.  To view the entire article, go to

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27513-2001Aug31.html

---------

This was definitely worth the reading time. One aspect that the author (Fred 

Barbash) touches several times is the issue of averages and statistics. 

These numbers can become quite irrelevant when you actually are exposed to a 

high risk. Say that the average number of people being killed annually by 

lightening or shark bites or whatever. An incidence number describing such 

events are small (say about less than 1/100 000 or so annually - I don't 

have the numbers available at this time - the point here is just that the 

average probability is very low).



This contrasts dramatically the situation when you actually are swimming in 

the coastal waters of Florida or South Carolina (I have tried both but will 

be more careful in the future) or if you insist to play football while rain 

and thunder storm is present. Large parts of the population may not be 

exposed to the risk at all - because they live in areas where lightening or 

shark are either absent or rare - or they hardly ever expose themselves to 

the risk (but some encounters can be quite unexpected - like the pygmy 

rattler at Walmart in Hammond, LA, which bit somebody looking at potted 

flowers in April this year

http://www.kingsnake.com/forum/crotalid/messages/7451.html - wonder who you 

make meaningful statistical models for that).



Just my reflections,



Bjorn Cedervall    bcradsafers@hotmail.com





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