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Re: (meteorobs) Re: potentially hazardous objects (PHA's)
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> From: KevTK <KevTK@aol.com>
> To: meteorobs@latrade.com
> Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Re: potentially hazardous objects (PHA's)
> Date: Friday, February 27, 1998 3:46 PM
>
> In a message dated 98-02-24 12:28:37 EST, you write:
>
> << You didn't know that? Well, the equation is quite simple: It is
considered
> that the really big blasts happen about every hundred million years or
so.
> At such occasions, a third of all mankind may die. 2 billion divided by
a
> hundred million gives an average of 20 casulties per year...
>
> Of course, such an equation is *complete* nonsense, it's like raping
> statistics, but you find that again and again! >>
>
>
> LOL...I subscribe to Meteorite magazine and I don't think there are even
20
> RECOVERIES a year. :D
> Never let statistics interfere with the truth...
>
> Kevin
What is Statistics anyway.
Statistics: 1: a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection,
analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of numerical data 2
: a collection of quantitative data
Perhaps Kevin and the person who called the statistical equation on impacts
complete nonsense would like to see this branch of mathematics pulled from
books stores and campuses in the world because they cannot count the bodies
each year from impacts and if obviously give comes to false conclusions.
This is an example of Absolutely no appreciation for deep time. I have some
land for these folks on a riverside flood plain.
We tend to accept on an everyday level that
the past 200 years are pretty representative of the history of the earth;
impact have not been a problem in that time and so we assume they basically
are not a problem at all. We are, as a species, much better at dealing with
frequencies than probabilities, and we have no experience of the frequency
of impacts. If you think in deep time -- that is, if you think about
periods of time too long to be of relevance to a single human life or to a
family -- the picture looks different. Since the last ice age there have
probably been a hundred impacts that would have wiped out cities had one
been in the wrong place at the wrong time; there has probably been at least
one big enough to have wiped most traces of civilisation from around the
rim of one of the major ocean basins."
Victor
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