Life & Statistics

Amit always talks of this book called "Fooled by Randomness"...I havent read it as such but I am made to understand that it talks about how statistics/probability etc screwed someone in the capital market. Lets broaden our horizon and talk of a much more generic aspect...i.e. Life...I often take the Goa highway and the road, though beautiful is pretty dangerous. What with just two lanes, a hilly terrain and all the drivers trying to act a-la Lewis Hamilton....And why I bring this topc now is that quite often I tell my driver to slow down a bit and he always replies saying, "Sir, hum yahan 10 saal se chala raha hai, kuch nahin hoga". Thats precisely my point. Even if you have driven accident free for 10 years, it does not guarantee that there would be no accidents. Even though the probability (based on empircal results) is very little, it would have no meaning when an accident were to happen. You just cant go on being reckless because of low probability. Let me take another example..One of my cousins is a doc and she once told me, "The concept of probability hardly exists for us. Imagine a doc in an OT...there is only one result...Success or Failure and at times failures are irreverisible. When he enters the OT, thats his goal. I doubt how many of them think of probability and all" So true...