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#21
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algomeysa2 wrote: ...... there's not one instance in recorded history of anyone dying in an asteroid impact. Tunguska. There've been numerous accounts of people killed by stones falling from the sky. For most of recorded history these accounts were dismissed. Educated folks knew they were the fantasies. Only ignorant peasants would believe stones fall from the sky! -- Hop David http://clowder.net/hop/index.html |
#22
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In article ,
Jonathan Silverlight wrote: In message , writes algomeysa2 writes: Interesting page, but, you know, when I go to a webpage and the first thing I see is this: "The risk you face of dying as a result of an asteroid impact is about 1 in 20,000, the same risk you face of dying in a plane crash. - Source: Spaceguard Survey" The fact that that's obviously a completely bogus statistic.....considering, oh...... I can search the web and find many people who have died in plane crashes, but, there's not one instance in recorded history of anyone dying in an asteroid impact...... makes that rather suspect.... On what basis do you call it a fact that it is "a completely bogus statistic"? In reality, the statistic is not at all bogus. It's your reasoning that's bogus. You're trying to compare a relatively high frequency, low fatality event (plane crashes) with a relatively low frequency, high fatality event (asteroid impacts). Suppose an asteroid impact that causes a mass extinction (let's say 50 percent of the human population eventually dies as a result) happens once every 10 million years. Well, the current global population is about 6 billion. That makes for an average death rate of 600 people per year. How many people die in plane crashes each year? The number is comparable to within the limits of this execise. I would say that shows how completely bogus the statistic is. The actual number of people exposed to the danger of dying in a plane crash is a tiny fraction of the number now living in various degrees of poverty on Earth. Not true! People risking to die in an airplane crash aren't merely those who ride the airplane -- people on the ground may be hit by the falling airplane as well. Thus, everyone living where airplanes pass overhead run a small risk to die in an airplane crash, including those who never ride an airplane. To completely avoid that risk you'd have to always remain underground, or in some bunker. But it is an absolute certainty that some of them will die in a plane crash. Not true either! It's merely extremely probable that some will die in future plane crashes, but it is *NOT* absolutely certain! And the number of people who have lived in the past ten million years is vastly more than the current population - Clarke's "behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts" comes to mind. Not true either! Remember that for quite some time, the Earth's population has doubled every generation or so. Therefore the number of people who've ever have lived on Earth are only perhaps four to six times the number of people living today. Thus there aren't as many as "30 ghosts" behind every man now alive -- there are only some "4-6 ghosts"..... In fact 10 million years ago man didn't exist. This seems to be your first, and only, true statement of this post.. :-) But then no-one's interested in spending money on solving problems that actually kill people. If so, why do we have hospitals, physicians, ambulances, etc? After all, we've spent trillions to ensure the destruction of all life on Earth. :-) ...no we haven't. I suppose you're referring to all the nuclear weapons on Earth. First, it is NOT, repeat, NOT absolutely certain that they will be detonated, as you imply here. And second, even if we detonated them all, we would NOT destroy all life on Earth! Sure, human civilization would probably be destroyed, and perhaps all humans and a large number of mammal species as well. But some life would survive. In particular the insects, who are able to tolerate much higher doses of radioactivity than humans and mammals, would definitely survive: they'd just hibernate through the "nuclear winter" which would follow. That big asteroid which we believe hit the Earth at the end of the Createcous period, killing off the dinosaurs, was probably a larger catastrophy to the biosphere than anything we humans are able to produce -- including detonating all our nuclear weapons. And life didn't end on Earth then. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/ http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/ |
#23
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In article ,
Jonathan Silverlight wrote: In message , writes algomeysa2 writes: Interesting page, but, you know, when I go to a webpage and the first thing I see is this: "The risk you face of dying as a result of an asteroid impact is about 1 in 20,000, the same risk you face of dying in a plane crash. - Source: Spaceguard Survey" The fact that that's obviously a completely bogus statistic.....considering, oh...... I can search the web and find many people who have died in plane crashes, but, there's not one instance in recorded history of anyone dying in an asteroid impact...... makes that rather suspect.... On what basis do you call it a fact that it is "a completely bogus statistic"? In reality, the statistic is not at all bogus. It's your reasoning that's bogus. You're trying to compare a relatively high frequency, low fatality event (plane crashes) with a relatively low frequency, high fatality event (asteroid impacts). Suppose an asteroid impact that causes a mass extinction (let's say 50 percent of the human population eventually dies as a result) happens once every 10 million years. Well, the current global population is about 6 billion. That makes for an average death rate of 600 people per year. How many people die in plane crashes each year? The number is comparable to within the limits of this execise. I would say that shows how completely bogus the statistic is. The actual number of people exposed to the danger of dying in a plane crash is a tiny fraction of the number now living in various degrees of poverty on Earth. Not true! People risking to die in an airplane crash aren't merely those who ride the airplane -- people on the ground may be hit by the falling airplane as well. Thus, everyone living where airplanes pass overhead run a small risk to die in an airplane crash, including those who never ride an airplane. To completely avoid that risk you'd have to always remain underground, or in some bunker. But it is an absolute certainty that some of them will die in a plane crash. Not true either! It's merely extremely probable that some will die in future plane crashes, but it is *NOT* absolutely certain! And the number of people who have lived in the past ten million years is vastly more than the current population - Clarke's "behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts" comes to mind. Not true either! Remember that for quite some time, the Earth's population has doubled every generation or so. Therefore the number of people who've ever have lived on Earth are only perhaps four to six times the number of people living today. Thus there aren't as many as "30 ghosts" behind every man now alive -- there are only some "4-6 ghosts"..... In fact 10 million years ago man didn't exist. This seems to be your first, and only, true statement of this post.. :-) But then no-one's interested in spending money on solving problems that actually kill people. If so, why do we have hospitals, physicians, ambulances, etc? After all, we've spent trillions to ensure the destruction of all life on Earth. :-) ...no we haven't. I suppose you're referring to all the nuclear weapons on Earth. First, it is NOT, repeat, NOT absolutely certain that they will be detonated, as you imply here. And second, even if we detonated them all, we would NOT destroy all life on Earth! Sure, human civilization would probably be destroyed, and perhaps all humans and a large number of mammal species as well. But some life would survive. In particular the insects, who are able to tolerate much higher doses of radioactivity than humans and mammals, would definitely survive: they'd just hibernate through the "nuclear winter" which would follow. That big asteroid which we believe hit the Earth at the end of the Createcous period, killing off the dinosaurs, was probably a larger catastrophy to the biosphere than anything we humans are able to produce -- including detonating all our nuclear weapons. And life didn't end on Earth then. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/ http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/ |
#24
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Jonathan Silverlight wrote: I would say that shows how completely bogus the statistic is. The actual number of people exposed to the danger of dying in a plane crash is a tiny fraction of the number now living in various degrees of poverty on Earth. But it is an absolute certainty that some of them will die in a plane crash. Far more will die of old age while waiting for the security check to board the aircraft. Pat |
#25
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Jonathan Silverlight wrote: I would say that shows how completely bogus the statistic is. The actual number of people exposed to the danger of dying in a plane crash is a tiny fraction of the number now living in various degrees of poverty on Earth. But it is an absolute certainty that some of them will die in a plane crash. Far more will die of old age while waiting for the security check to board the aircraft. Pat |
#26
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In article , Hop David wrote:
algomeysa2 wrote: ...... there's not one instance in recorded history of anyone dying in an asteroid impact. Tunguska. There are no recorded fatalities; it was noted by some Siberian herders, IIRC, but they were sufficiently far from it to survive. Indeed, some reports give it as being observed in a town 70km away... Some reindeer were probably killed, but there's no evidence anyone was in the immediate vicinity; personally, I consider it unlikely that it killed anyone off. There've been numerous accounts of people killed by stones falling from the sky. For most of recorded history these accounts were dismissed. Educated folks knew they were the fantasies. Only ignorant peasants would believe stones fall from the sky! Um. There have been numerous accounts of stones falling from the sky, and these accounts were generally dismissed; what was Jefferson alleged to have said, again? "It is easier to believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven" or similar, IIRC... I've not encountered references to any records of people killed by meteorites in my readings on the subject; do you have anything? There are various semi-mythic interesting deaths that might, I suppose, be linkable - "and then the hand of God reached out from the sky and struck him dead" or the like - but nothing quite like the meteorite records that crop up intermittently. There are, currently, no human beings known with any confidence to have been killed by a meteorite strike. There are, almost certainly, human beings who have been killed by meteorites (or orbital debris) strikes, I feel, but we don't know about them. -- -Andrew Gray |
#27
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In article , Hop David wrote:
algomeysa2 wrote: ...... there's not one instance in recorded history of anyone dying in an asteroid impact. Tunguska. There are no recorded fatalities; it was noted by some Siberian herders, IIRC, but they were sufficiently far from it to survive. Indeed, some reports give it as being observed in a town 70km away... Some reindeer were probably killed, but there's no evidence anyone was in the immediate vicinity; personally, I consider it unlikely that it killed anyone off. There've been numerous accounts of people killed by stones falling from the sky. For most of recorded history these accounts were dismissed. Educated folks knew they were the fantasies. Only ignorant peasants would believe stones fall from the sky! Um. There have been numerous accounts of stones falling from the sky, and these accounts were generally dismissed; what was Jefferson alleged to have said, again? "It is easier to believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven" or similar, IIRC... I've not encountered references to any records of people killed by meteorites in my readings on the subject; do you have anything? There are various semi-mythic interesting deaths that might, I suppose, be linkable - "and then the hand of God reached out from the sky and struck him dead" or the like - but nothing quite like the meteorite records that crop up intermittently. There are, currently, no human beings known with any confidence to have been killed by a meteorite strike. There are, almost certainly, human beings who have been killed by meteorites (or orbital debris) strikes, I feel, but we don't know about them. -- -Andrew Gray |
#28
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In other words...."Figures don't lie -- but liars will figure."
-- Stinger "John Oliver" wrote in message newsKslb.96975$AH4.44361@lakeread06... algomeysa2 wrote: "Ron Baalke" wrote in message ... http://www.lowell.edu/press_room/rel...ermes_rls.html For more information on the discovery and images of Hermes, visit the LONEOS website at http://asteroid.lowell.edu/asteroid/loneos/loneos.html. Interesting page, but, you know, when I go to a webpage and the first thing I see is this: "The risk you face of dying as a result of an asteroid impact is about 1 in 20,000, the same risk you face of dying in a plane crash. - Source: Spaceguard Survey" The fact that that's obviously a completely bogus statistic.....considering, oh...... I can search the web and find many people who have died in plane crashes, but, there's not one instance in recorded history of anyone dying in an asteroid impact...... makes that rather suspect.... Its "a priori" vs. "a postiori" statistics ... all statistics are "bogus" if you do not understand the basis. |
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