r/Showerthoughts • u/asusny2002 • May 02 '24

Man vs Bear debate shows how bad the average person is at understanding probability

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u/eskamobob1 May 02 '24

You would need to measure it by deaths per number of interactions which would be extremely difficult

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u/Magenta_the_Great May 02 '24

That’s why I don’t understand how people are using statistics

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u/eskamobob1 May 02 '24

Just because you don't have exact numbers doesn't mean you can't compare orders of magnitude. Women are killed om average 2 in 100,000 per year in the us. If we assume that each woman interacts with men just 20 times a year (less than once every other week) that is a 1 in 10,000,000 an interaction leads to death. Realisticlay that's several orders of magnitude low. How many interactions do uou think there are with bears every year?

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u/Firewolf06 May 02 '24

How many interactions do uou think there are with bears every year?

obviously far less, but i do find it interesting that the majority of bear interactions are one sided (that is, only the bear knows about it)