Friday, December 19, 2008

New Math for Newlyweds

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I am rarely at a loss for an opinion. Those who play fast and loose with math to make a point, or who just don't understand the basics and demand to be heard by shouting from their soapboxes, need to be corrected.

In a comment about condoms, DANEgerous points out:
In contrast condoms break, or slip, up to 12% of the time. That may not sound like a big number but if you have sex more then once, each event is cumulative and the probability of unsafe sex quickly exceeds 100%. Given the average single person 'hooks up' with a few partners a year, a few times each, multiply those dozen "trials" by a failure rate that high and the average single person exceeds 100% every year.
What school did you attend, dude? Probability never exceeds 100%. Didn't I teach you that? Repeatedly?
Posted by Curmudgeon at Friday, December 19, 2008

1 comment:

  1. Kim HugheyDecember 19, 2008 at 4:28 PM

    Unbelievable. I can't believe an educated person made that statement in a blog that has been visited over 480,000. Have you ever heard Todd Snider's song called "Statistician's Blues"? It describes this attitude perfectly. Look it up on I-tunes. If the song didn't have so much bad language, it would be perfect for the classroom and a unit on statistics.

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