The online magazine Plus has an interesting article, complete with animation, about the different ways of expressing risk
The basic message is that mathematically equivalent choices – 90% chance of winning v 10% chance of losing – are not perceived to be the same
I was reminded of the point Menninger made about how it seems to have been very difficult for early man to have grasped ‘the two-ness of two’- that two sheep have anything in common with two lions for example
We still seem to get a lot of our understanding about number in ways that are very attached to certain things, circumstances or processes. 9 out of 10 in primary school is better than 90%
A 90% vote for one candidate or party in an election is probably too good to be true, or at least a source of concern about the state of our politics
A contraceptive with only 90% reliability is no use at all
The number is almost irrelevant – in what sense do any of these events or experiences share 90%-ness in common?
I recently heard on the radio an interview with Margaret Calvert, the designer with Jock Kinneir of the signs needed for Britain’s new motorway system. I was particularly struck by the insight that names have a shape – a shape which is lost, particularly on someone passing at speed, if capital letters only are used on the signs
Numbers have all kinds of shapes, not just those we can see with our eyes
