| What seems to be one way can turn out to be quite | | | | statistical framework.An academic works out that |
| the opposite. Whatever you decide, someone else | | | | the risk of a bomb on his plane is small but the risk |
| will disagree, and whatever view or posture is taken, | | | | of two bombs is infinitesimal: so he always carries a |
| there is an opposing one which will readily be taken | | | | bomb with him in his case.Television and films |
| up by another, insisting just as much as you that | | | | perpetuate the idea that any woman worthy of the |
| they are right and following a line of truth and | | | | name is five feet eight inches tall, slim, blonde with a |
| accuracy. | | | | perfect body and able to achieve full and multiple |
| "Prove it!" say the Scientists. "Convince me!" Says | | | | orgasms at will, anytime, anywhere, with anyone. |
| the Sceptic. "I don't see it that way at all", cry the | | | | With regard to the latter at least, surveys prove this |
| Cynic and the debater.A small child tells his first lie and | | | | is not the case with over 75% of women. Yet |
| gets away with it, creating his first effective illusion. | | | | teenage girls are drawn in to the myth with resultant |
| By accurately representing something to be other | | | | high stress levels.INABILITYInnumeracy can be |
| than the way it is, he has made the discovery of | | | | maddeningly wasteful. Credit cards need no more |
| illusion or lying. A whole new world has opened up | | | | than nine numbers in sequence, or even better, six |
| before him. No longer he feels, does he need the old | | | | letters (26 to the power of six is over 300 million). |
| skills to explain, justify and convince honestly, he can | | | | Most have an infuriating 15 or more.We may laugh |
| create an illusion or lie instead. As time goes by he | | | | about damned lies and statistics - but somehow the |
| becomes more adept and sophisticated in his skills | | | | statistics live on when the laughter has died.We seem |
| and his parents have to counter his illusions with an | | | | unable to master simple concepts of number, but |
| increasingly firm grasp on their own realities and | | | | how devastating is the impact of this failure on our |
| perceptiveness.An adult rebukes and exposes an | | | | ordinary lives. |
| untruth of another's whilst firmly maintaining his own | | | | Bluntly, we cannot count. A disability as serious as |
| illusions in place... Politicians engage each other and the | | | | illiteracy, becomes, curiously, a matter of shame. |
| electorate in "Find me out if you can", whilst | | | | Illiteracy we conceal.If we cannot read or spell or |
| perpetuating their own daily public illusions as the | | | | quote the novels of Jane Austen and Dickens we |
| nation slowly disintegrates in a truth-less vacuum of | | | | keep a decent silence. But publicly boast of our |
| public relations and tabloid guessing-game of "What's | | | | innumeracy with pride. "I was hopeless at maths ... no |
| going on?"Lie versus lie. Trickery versus trickery. | | | | good asking me about fractions .... can barely count |
| Illusion versus illusion. Simply put, lying is a deception, | | | | to 10, ha ha". |
| an alteration of time, place, form or event. A | | | | Like primitive (and not-so-primitive) humans, we |
| statement that something is different from the way | | | | seek coincidence and parallels where none exist. We |
| it actually is. And we are all just too susceptible. | | | | seem to need the reassurance of pseudo-sciences, |
| Susceptible to lies, illusions and | | | | of astrology, "analysis", ley lines and tarot cards, to |
| misrepresentations.ILLUSION AND | | | | explain the odd or distressing. |
| INNUMERACYCrime is by far the greatest victim of | | | | We abuse mathematics itself with dotty |
| innumeracy and misrepresentation. Surveys show | | | | numerology.But what most concerns is our ignorance |
| that the public believes crime in Britain to be far | | | | of probability theory, our inability to handle proportion |
| worse than it actually is. Media publicity - especially | | | | and risk. We lose our capacity for judgment. We |
| "terror" clips such as are shown on ITV's | | | | cannot filter information gained from newspapers and |
| Crimestoppers - heightens fear and leads old people | | | | broadcasting and set it in context. Since rarity leads |
| and women to alter their lives. Unable to grasp the | | | | to publicity, rare events come to seem commonplace. |
| significance of an incident, they assume the worst | | | | We want to be diverted, excited, shocked. Some of |
| and retreat into fortress self. | | | | us may read quality newspapers, but we all have |
| The terrorist knows this well. He has long seen the | | | | tabloid minds.DISTORTIONThis leads to grotesque |
| media as his great ally in playing on irrational fears. | | | | distortion in our response to events. Forty dead on |
| Two bombs in quick succession constitute a "new | | | | the roads is not news. Forty dead on a boat is a |
| offensive". By being publicised, set alongside other | | | | public scandal and the government must |
| similar crimes and credited with a "conspiracy", this | | | | act.Smoking-related deaths in America are now the |
| erects an edifice of horror in the public's mind. | | | | equivalent of three loaded jumbo jets crashing every |
| Journeys are cancelled, jobs lost, chaos induced.In | | | | day. The one statistic bores us, the other would |
| Britain, deaths per head of the population from | | | | appall us. (Much the same is true of drunken driving in |
| accidents and violence have steadily fallen in the last | | | | Britain).One famous aids death is splashed across the |
| half of the century. Fear should, statistically, be falling | | | | papers; stars appear on stage appealing for funds. |
| too. It is not. The greatest risk of violence facing | | | | Alzheimer's disease or kidney failure blight the lives of |
| British adults is not from strangers, the IRA, or acts | | | | far more people. In my view they are more |
| for God, but from those two familiars, the car and | | | | deserving of charitable support. Sadly, they are less |
| the spouse. The latter, "the loved one", is specially | | | | rare, less exotic, and have nothing to do with |
| lethal. The kitchen is the favourite venue for assault, | | | | sex.Only an innumerate could seriously believe that |
| knives and crockery being readily to hand. But we | | | | America's Strategic Defence Initiative would ever do |
| are not sufficiently aware of these facts to allow | | | | what television cartoons show it doing.A true |
| them to affect our lives. They are banal. We even | | | | numerate would dispense with long-range weather |
| pretend not to believe them.FEARThe Aids | | | | prediction, lie-detector tests, Treasury Inflation |
| researcher exploits fear of unsafe sex to get more | | | | forecasts and lotteries. The chances of error are too |
| money for research. The police exploit fear of dark | | | | great, or the odds far too long. A numerate would |
| streets to boost manpower and pay. The terrorists | | | | also keep lawyers away from accident inquiries. |
| know that another bomb creates fear and makes | | | | Lawyers are trained to judge absolutes, guilt and |
| people fed up with government inability. Each wants | | | | innocence, rather than the subtle gradations of risk |
| our money or our support. A toothpaste is said to | | | | familiar to managers struggling with day-to-day |
| yield "200% fewer cavities". A politician "Will not rest | | | | problems.The "rampant silliness" of pseudo science, |
| until the majority of our children are above average | | | | the abuse of logic and the lack of clear thinking on |
| attainment". | | | | political priorities are abundant.We do not need more |
| A story in Today declares "The number of women | | | | facts, but a better ability to grasp the ones we |
| murdered by the men in their lives has jumped from | | | | have.Stephen Kaye is a business owner and author |
| a third to almost a half". | | | | from Devon, Uk. |
| Each relies on our inability to set the fear in a | | | | |