A Thought Experiment

[drplokta]

Suppose that you saw the following statement in the media, and after a little research discovered that it appeared to be well substantiated. How would you react? What do you think would be the general public reaction?

Radiation released from nuclear power stations continues to exceed safe limits in central London, and is causing over 4,000 deaths from cancer per year.

It's not true of course. But let's change a few words, and we get a statement that is true (as far as can be determined):

Particulates released from diesel vehicles continue to exceed safe limits in central London, and are causing over 4,000 deaths from asthma, lung disease and heart attacks per year.

So, what's your reaction to that one? And the public reaction? Is there a difference? Why?

Comments

[dougs.livejournal.com]

There's another candidate for second paragraph, featuring deaths from road traffic accidents.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

This figure, 4,000 excess deaths in *London*, is much, much higher than the number of deaths from road traffic accidents. But it's also suspect for the reasons I go into briefly below, and also because there is no such thing as an excess death; everybody dies of something. We care, and should care, a great deal more about someone dying in a RTA at age 19, than we do about a 79 year old dying of lung disease due to particulates six months earlier than they would have done anyway.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

> no such thing as an excess death; everybody dies of something

I agree wholeheartedly. And we can look a little wider than deaths -- my brother, who wasn't an RTA death and doesn't contribute to those statistics, has spent the last twenty years on one leg. And although he's currently dieing, I don't see how you can blame that on any specific cause when we can clearly see it's a combination of several including industrial causes, smoking, and the very aggressive programme of pain management he's been on as a result of the same RTA.

I echo your "statistics of this kind are remarkably subjective" comment below: I think I've demonstrated one of my particular subjectivities.