Editing 795: Conditional Risk
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 8: | Line 8: | ||
==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | The comic deals with the difference between | + | The comic deals with the difference between general probability of certain event based on entire past history and the probability of the same event in particular circumstances. While the chance of any American selected randomly from general population to be killed by lightning is very low, for a particular person already being in the circumstances where lightning might strike him or her (such as being in the midst of a thunderstorm) is much higher. Since the statistics provided talks only about Americans, the other character wrongly assumes the chance to be struck by lightning for non-American is non-existant - which underlines the difference between knowing certain event can't or didn't happen and not having any data about the event. |
− | + | The "one in six" statistic is probably invented by the author - which is also illuminates the danger of dealing with "statistical data" provided by random sources without any attribution to actual statistical surveys or hard data. | |
− | |||
− | The "one in six" statistic is probably invented by the author - which also illuminates the danger of dealing with "statistical data" provided by random sources without any attribution to actual statistical surveys or hard data | ||
− | |||
− | |||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
Line 23: | Line 19: | ||
:Second person: It's okay! Lightning only kills about 45 Americans a year, so the chances of dying are only one in 7,000,000. Let's go on! | :Second person: It's okay! Lightning only kills about 45 Americans a year, so the chances of dying are only one in 7,000,000. Let's go on! | ||
− | |||
:The annual death rate among people who know that statistic is one in six. | :The annual death rate among people who know that statistic is one in six. | ||
− | |||
{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} | ||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− |