August 19, 2010

Reality check: Your odds of dying from...

2 comments:

  1. This is great, but I would like to know the source of the information.

    Some of it looks a little fishy to me (1 in 8 that one's next meal is McDonald's? Really?) and some of it borders on misleading. For example:

    Your odds of winning the lottery given one ticket are a lot different than your odds across the lifespan if you play every week. Likewise, does this refer to your odds of seeing a given poker hand given a single draw from a full deck?

    It's wonderful to illustrate this kind of thing, but I don't think it promotes critical thinking when so much is ambiguous and the source is not verifiable.

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  2. Anonymous3:15 AM

    I really hope that last one is wrong. Ignoring any obvious stupid jokes like "Oh no, there's 12.5% chance I'm going to be forced at gunpoint to eat at a fast food place tomorrow morning" it suggests that, assuming nearly everyone has 3 meals per day, that around 3 out of 8 people eat at McDonalds at least once per day nearly every day. The only way it can be much lower than this is if around 10-15% of people eat every single meal there. Either way, that's horrifying.

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