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Conspiracies And Probability

Posted by Hemos on from the roll-the-dice-enough-times dept.

guttentag writes "Sunday's New York Times Magazine is running a feature that looks at the rumored conspiracy that allegedly killed nearly a dozen bioterror and germ warfare researchers during a four month period following the U.S. anthrax scare. "What are the odds," people ask, despite the fact that a "one-in-a-million miracle" will statistically occur 280 times a day in the U.S. These strange things happen all the time, but we hype them because they provide the spice in literature and the comfort of comprehension."

2 of 491 comments (clear)

  1. What are the odds? by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You could find the odds exactly if you knew several figures:

    What is the number of bio-whatnot researchers in the group?
    What are the odds of one dying in a given time period?
    And this is the hardest: How many comparable groups are there in society? For example, politicians dying would be noticed. Baseball players dying would be noticed. And how big are these groups?

    If you answer these simple questions, you can answer the main topic.

  2. Amazing Gullibility by death00 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am always amazed by the gullibility of the general populice. How can people honestly believe that a modern government could harbour ANY kind of conspiracy given that they can't even keep the affair of a President with an intern secret?? If there really were aliens on earth, UFOs circling the solar system, etc., you'd be guaranteed that somebody, somewhere who wasn't hushed up by "the government" would have reported it on the 'net. Conspiracy theories are just another method for selling media to the masses.