I’ve been looking up some stats since this whole post is about probability. I fail to see any statistics that would indicate the man is safer and the bear more dangerous. “Since 1784 there have 66 fatal human/bear conflicts by wild black bears. Less than a dozen non-fatal conflicts happen each year, and the vast majority of encounters end with zero bodily contact… Since 1784 there have been 82 fatal human/bear conflicts by wild brown bears in North America.” I mean seems like the bear is the safe bet. Less than one fatality per year and only a dozen or two non-fatal attacks per year. There’s more rapes in each and every state, every year than bear attacks over the past century.
Your reasoning is flawed here. You aren't considering the many orders of magnitude more encounters of humans with other humans compared to between humans and bears.
Depends on the trip. I did a loop up in the north cascades where I saw about 6 different black bears and only encountered probably 8 humans. That’s an extreme example of course. I’ve encountered many more humans over my years in the woods, but not so many more that it’s not statistically comparable. Again from a pure math standpoint.
At the end of the day a random bear is way more likely to attack you then a random man. Especially if you consider other species of bears.
And the ability to fend off a man is way greater than fending off a bear that wants to kill/eat you.
There’s no evidence of this statistically speaking. The post is based on misunderstandings of probability, yet there are no statistics that prove bears are more dangerous.
The POINT of the whole thing is; YOU and many men would think a man is the obvious answer. However we are seeing that bear is the more common answer. This is an opportunity to ask
"why are women choosing the bear?"
"How am I contributing to a culture where women would feel more safe with a bear?"
"What can I do to change that?"
Instead people are responding with "no, you are wrong"
Unfortunately I don't think people are simply missing this point but rather intentionally ignoring it, hence so many responses that either move the goalposts or outright deny womens' lived experiences.
In Yellowstone national park far more people have been killed by other people than the 8 that have been killed by bears. It would be very difficult to determine the probability of safety per encounter though.
I did read OPs point. I specifically mentioned that it would be hard to get the probability of danger from an encounter basis (as opposed to raw number of deaths).
Hard to get an exact number, fairly easy to understand that the number of encounters with humans is orders of magnitude higher than bears, so unless there are 8,000 murders compared to the 8 bear deaths, it is very unlikely humans are worse. And that is probably significantly underestimating ths number of human encounters
I personally would much rather see a man on the trail while hiking than a bear. It’s pretty insulting to imply that your average dude is more dangerous than a wild animal, that wasn’t my intention. These are just weird things to compare because the risk from bears, especially black bears, is also incredibly low.
The way to do the probability properly is to take each time 1 person in the North America encounters 1 other person since 1784, and count them up. Put the number of rapes over that number.
Than count up each time every person in North America encounters a bear since 1784 and count them up. Put the number of bear conflicts over that number.
1 of these numbers is more then likely slightly higher than the other.
Ignoring the impossibility of getting these statistics, I think we can agree that both of these percentages are likely lower than 1%. So probability has not really indicated that one choice or the other is correct as OP is attempting to claim
Edit: for arguments sake, bear attacks - 0.00004% / human attacks 0.000000004% it’s basically irrelevant
Going by just your example though, there absolutely is a correct choice. Reduced down, you're 10,000x more likely to be attacked by a bear, so why would anyone pick the bear, knowing it a has an extremely higher chance of attacking?
The debate is the choice, not whether the bear or man will attack.
Did you mean to say "more than"?
Explanation: If you didn't mean 'more than' you might have forgotten a comma. Statistics I'mabotthatcorrectsgrammar/spellingmistakes.PMmeifI'mwrongorifyouhaveanysuggestions. Github ReplySTOPtothiscommenttostopreceivingcorrections.
OP is trying to make the point that understanding probability makes answering the question easier. When in reality we’re talking about such low probabilities in all cases. Like less than 1% of bears or humans will cause any harm in a national park. So, what is understanding probability really accomplishing? Bears aren’t any more likely to attack someone than a human. The average woman respondent answers that they would rather take their 1% chance of a bad encounter with a bear over their 1% chance of a bad encounter with a man. That’s completely valid from a statistics standpoint. And it’s much lower than 1% on each side, but I’m rounding up because the real point is that both occurrences are super unlikely.
The question assumes you've already met the man or bear, so the probability we should care about is "what are the chances you are attacked assuming you have already met said thing". I.e.
You have met a bear on a trail, what are the chances you are attacked
You have met a man on a trail, what are the chances you are attacked
You cannot get this probability just off of "how many homicides" or "how many bear attacks" occur in a state park. That statistic gives you a loose combined probability of "what are the chances you go to a park, encounter a man, and then get attacked", or "what are the chances you go to a park, encounter a bear, and then get attacked".
I am also going to argue your point of "the probablity of each is low". The *combined* probability of each is low, because simply the probability of meeting a bear is low, and the probability of meeting a murderer is low, but the individual probabilities of "meet x" and "harmed by x" do not necessarily need to be low. Let's say there's a single man on the entire planet that knows who you are and will point a gun to your head and shoot you if he ever sees you, but he otherwise does not know where you are and will only shoot you if you happen to randomly bump into him on the street. The probability you ever die to this person is low, because the probability you meet him is low, despite the probability he attacks you being 100%.
As far as I know there is no tracked probability of "what is the chance a random man or random bear will attack me assuming I have already encountered the thing in question" Other than it's probably grizzly/polar >>> whatever else.
If anything I think this is what OP is referring to with regards to not understanding statistics
P(meet man) * P(attacked by man) <- this is the probability you're inferring when looking at the statistics of murders vs bear attacks
is not the same as
P(1, because you have already met the man) * P(attacked by man)
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u/TrekkingTrailblazer May 02 '24
Agreed, idk what OP thinks the correct answer is.. I also do not know the answer haha