The United State circa 2010 >> there is 1 birth every 7 seconds and 1 death every 13 seconds. Which means we're keeping ahead of the cemetery curve. But just barely...!
Instead of arguing the various theories to these statistics, lets simply consider statistics themselves. And our obsession with them. No better place to start than this morning's sports pages. Bulging with batting averages, pitching averages, fielding averages, strikeout averages; and now passing and interception averages. For anyone with an enduring affection for the magic of math -- well, loving math today means you never have to say you're sorry!
However, here's the problem.
Soon the assistance of statistics graduates into the comfort of statistics; and before you know it, educated humanity start to believe they can master large parts of their fate. For instance: DNA prospects for disease... mathematical prospects for stock market gains.... military prospects for victory....team prospects for the playoffs...oh, and the big one, actuarial prospects for death.
Some people live for food, for drink, for fun, for sex; others seem to live for the reassurance of having all their numerical ducks in a row.
As the kids would say: Whatever floats your boat! Only when you're no longer a kid, you have to grant that they [meaning Grandma & later Doris Day] were unerringly right when they sang: "Que Sera Sera." Because this surely is the 11th commandment: "What will be will be!"
This is not to deny humanity's control of its fate. We do have some. But hardly as much as our love-affair with statistical predictions might have us believe. Otherwise, the biggest team payrolls would always assure a pennant, the smartest broker would always assure a killing, and the biggest armies would always assure a victory.
Again, as the kids would say: Gotta hang loose. Be ready for anything, not just the sure thing. And if you ever need a slap-in-the-face reminder, check the obituary pages. They're always right there near the sports pages.
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May I say this is actually pretty profound!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, anon.
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