Life science information Specialists.

Statistics or Reality

For the Irish as well as in most countries, many things in our lives are calculated by statistics. The price we pay for our household insurance is calculated on how likely it will be to be destroyed in some accident and how much it will cost to rebuild. Our car insurance is based on the odds of us having an accident and how likely we are to make car insurance claims.

In the betting world the odds are calculated on how likely a horse or dog is to win the race and how many people are betting for that creature.

We buy lottery tickets knowing that statistically we have almost no chance of winning and we step on planes knowing that statistically there is almost no chance of crashing. We buy shares in blue chip companies knowing that according to their past performance and forecast they should increase in value.

There are people sitting there day after day whose job it is to calculate these statistics, whose job it is to set insurance tariffs, to set odds for betting. For them it is pure science and their job is done according to strict rules and mathematical calculations.

But those on the receiving end of the statistical event care nothing for maths or for science. For someone who has just won the lottery or is about to die in a plane crash it is a reality.