Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 7 December 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news051205-4
Column
Are you confident about that?
The impulse to use statistics to forecast doomsday is an old one. But can we believe the numbers, asks Philip Ball?
Statistics challenge our intuition even when they concern rolls of the dice. When our own destruction is at issue, they become almost mystically ungraspable.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email redesign@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.