One must consider marginal utility and limited resources. How many lives would be saved by committing a billion dollars to: 1. Combatting terrorism. 2. Reducing automobile accidents. 3. Making the food supply safe.
Two and three also have social and economic costs. And then there are the wars.... and resources committed to medical advertising and the production of 'me-too' drugs rather than research. On Dec 29, 2009, at 5:29 AM, Lilienfeld, Scott O wrote: > All true, and I don't dispute the statistics. But there's a good > reason to be (much) more concerned about terrorist attacks than > lightning: lightning doesn't learn from experience. Were > terrorists able to find a dependable way of bringing explosive > devices on board planes with low risk of detection, all it would > take is one or at most two downed commercial planes to paralyze > (temporarily, one would hope) the airplane industry, national and > international travel, and much of the world economy. > > Again, I don't dispute that the absolute risks are at present > extremely low. I just wouldn't want us to leap to the unjustified > conclusion that the amount of worry we should devote to such > incidents should be much less than to lightning strikes, as the > issues involved here are markedly different. > > ....Scott > From: Paul Brandon [paul.bran...@mnsu.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 1:19 AM > To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) > Subject: Re: [tips] Stats on airplane terrorism > > Not to mention the risks of being killed by an infected cheeseburger. > We cheerfully tolerate many higher but less dramatic risks than > 'terrorism'. > > On Dec 29, 2009, at 12:03 AM, Christopher D. Green wrote: > >> Here are some statistics on the probability of being the >> (attempted) victim of terrorism on a commercial flight that may >> make for interesting discussion in your courses: http:// >> www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/odds-of-airborne-terror.html >> >> Here's the best bit: "the odds of being on given departure which >> is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 >> over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by >> lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that >> you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be >> the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by >> lightning." > Paul Brandon 10 Crown Hill Lane Mankato, MN 56001 pkbra...@hickorytech.net Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato paul.bran...@mnsu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
