"Our neglect of silent evidence kills people daily. Assume that a drug saves many people from a potentially dangerous ailment , but runs the risk of killing a few, with a net benefit to society. Would a doctor prescribe it? He has no incentive to do so. The lawyers of the person hurt by the side effects will go after the doctor like attack dogs, while the lives saved by the drug might not be accounted for anywhere. A life saved is a statistic; a person hurt is an anecdote. Statistics are invisible; anecdotes are salient ."
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Statistics are invisible
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