What Are the Odds of That?

"I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot of news...
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse."
- Gilbert and Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance

As a mathematician by training I've always loved the song quote above. You don't find many songs about mathematics or rhymes for the word "hypotenuse". Sadly my appreciation for math is in the minority. Most people hated the subject in school and dread even the simple task of balancing the checkbook. (My wife is amazed that I keep our check book balanced to the penny.)

One place that you can find an almost complete lack of mathematics is in journalism. There are two reasons for this.

1. Journalists have a love for words, not numbers
2. Publishers want to sell the news and are less concerned about accuracy or reality.

Papers and news shows draw an audience by emphasising the dangerous and the deadly; sometimes causing panics as a result. The table below gives the odds various types of death and disease. You can see that cancer and travel accidents are high on the list and do get some media coverage. But what do the media headlines really focus on? Mad cow disease with a 1 in 40 million chance catching in any year. The SARS disease with a 1 in 100 million chance of dying in the US. You are far more likely to be killed by lightning (1 in 6 million annually) than by Mad Cow, SARS, West Nile virus or many of the other topics covered by journalists.

Looking at this another way, there are 300 million people in America. Divide by the odds and you get the expectation that in a given year 7 or 8 people in the US might contract Mad Cow and 3 could die from SARS. Compare this to the nearly 50,000 Americans that will die in transportation accidents each year. Car accidents are so common they are not "newsworthy".

All odds are LIFETIME odds
Death by cancer	7 to 1
Dying from an accidental injury	55 to 1
Death by transportation accident	79 to 1
Dying from any kind of fall	194 to 1
Having your identity stolen	200 to 1
Being murdered	210 to 1
Dying from a car accident	261 to 1
Dying from exposure to smoke, fire, and flames	1,192 to 1
Dying from choking on food	4,411 to 1
Dying in an airplane accident	6,460 to 1
Being killed by lightning	79,400 to 1

Bottom Line

Take anything you hear on the news with a grain of salt. They want to scare you because a frightened person will stay glued to the news for more information. Recently we wanted our cub scout pack to collect insects in the woods. But the boys were initially reluctant to enter the woods - they were worried about ticks and Lyme disease. Yes Lyme is a reality - I've had it, my wife has had it twice, our dog caught it. But you can take preventative measures and do a tick check after being outside. If caught early, Lyme is easily cured. Don't let warnings of dangers keep you from enjoying life.

Know what the REAL risks are and where the real dangers in life occur. Check out the following tables for more details:

http://www.nsc.org/research/odds.aspx (the official source of most odds)

http://www.funny2.com/odds.htm

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050106_odds_of_dying.html

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2008/03/odds-of-dying-in-us.html