The Odds Are Stacked Against Us
The world is awash in numbers yet most people find it harder than ever to understand them. Cory Doctorow, writing the Guardian, focuses on rare events and people’s inability to estimate their probability. Whether it’s playing the lottery, investing in the market, or running a business, most people rely on their intuition and end up making terrible decisions. Doctorow argues, “We’re just not wired to have good intuition about things that happen with extreme infrequency.” To remedy the situation he goes on to suggest
You don’t get to understand the statistics of rare events by intuition. It’s something that has to be learned, through formal and informal instruction. If there’s one thing the government and our educational institutions could do to keep us safer, it’s this: teach us how statistics works. They should drill it into us with the same vigor with which they approached convincing us that property values would rise forever, make it the subject of reality TV shows and infuse every corner of our news and politics with it.
Infrequent events or not, a better grasp of the numbers would certainly make for a lot more restful nights and more profitable days for any managers.
2 Responses to “The Odds Are Stacked Against Us”
Yo, Trevor: This is partly a thanks for the cool Doctorow link, partially a check to see if you’re checking blog comments in the middle of the Few seminar.
This form is totally fubarred in my firefox.
By Chip Hart on Jun 25, 2008
Great article. What are the odds of getting the West Nile virus versus the common cold. Yet, how many people die annually from influenza compared to those rare, media-hyped illnesses.
For a good history on the origins of media’s influence at twisting our perspective — and insticts — read Daniel Boorstin’s classic, “The Image”.
By Peter Walker on Jul 2, 2008