Nancy Writebol claims "God uses experimental drugs."

Nancy Writebol, an American medical missionary who recently recovered from Ebola gave a press conference today and said crazy things like this:

“The Lord came near, ‘Am I enough? Am I enough?’” My response to the Lord, was, ‘Yes you are enough.’”

And this:

“This is not our story, it is God’s story. God is writing this.”

Take THAT dead and dying Africans. If this is all part of god's plan, then he/she/it is a moral monster. If god didn't "write" this but allows it to occur, then he/she/it is a moral monster. If god is indifferent to this earthly suffering or is otherwise powerless to stop it, he/she/it is a moral monster and is hardly a god worth praising. This is inescapable.

The arrogance displayed in attributing one's survival to "god" or "faith" (who, mysteriously, works through medicine with experimental drugs that are developed slowly over time -- I mean, what's taking him/her/it so long to come up with the full blown cure?) in the face of so many deaths is truly reprehensible. The unmitigated gall of this woman!

Yes, I know Writebol fell extremely ill while trying to help people who are suffering from a terrible disease. It goes without saying that this should be commended. But if the Lord is "enough", why accept the medical treatment and experimental drugs at all? All I'm saying is, if I were the Lord, I'd be a little annoyed by this.

But then, this is the same Lord who is "writing" the story by creating these diseases only to work slowly and inefficiently through medical science, allowing doctors and researchers to pursue all sorts of blind alleys and dead ends before kinda sorta maybe hitting on something that might work. Meanwhile, the suffering is allowed to continue while he/she/it "works" in these mysterious ways as scientists take the heat for not having all the answers yet.

God gets all the credit and none of the blame. How convenient.

Plane Drain

It has been a rough year for airplanes. More specifically, it's been a rough week. This torrent of tragedies has garnered about as much media attention as is allowable against the backdrop of the Israeli ground invasion in Gaza. That these accidents have all occurred in a startlingly short period of time is purely coincidental. I haven't checked, but I'm sure the interwebs is abuzz with various conspiracy theories.

But more importantly, the recent loss of life from airline crashes may skew the perception of how safe air travel really is. Looking at the numbers, deaths from plane crashes has been trending lower in the last decade or so. However, 2014 is proving to be an aberration:

(Chart from The Upshot)

It's easy to see from the graph that air travel related deaths peaked prior to the 1980s, but has been decreasing ever since. Planes have never been safer, despite the anomaly that this year is turning out to be. Regardless of the news coverage of the recent disasters, there is no reason to fear air travel. As a matter of comparison, an average of 2 500 Canadians per year died in motor vehicle traffic accidents between 2007-2011. This is not an insignificant number, especially when you consider that the airline fatalities represent global totals. I don't even want to look at the global number of car deaths per year.

In an ironic twist, some people choose to avoid air travel in response to hearing about plane crashes. They opt to drive instead, and thus increase their risk of injury or death. This is precisely what happened after 9/11 resulting in and esitmated 1 600 more traffic deaths in America than would normally be expected. Granted, this phenomenon was also bound up with the fear of terrorist attacks, but the worry was directed primarily at airline safety.

It is necessary to put the terrible news about the recent plane crashes in context and bring some perspective to the number of fatalities. Don't be afraid to fly. It's still much safer than driving. Whenever you get worked up about your next flight, try to remember how many planes take off and land all over the world every day without any trouble at all. Normal, mundane things that go as planned simply don't make the news. Oddly, neither do most motor vehicle accidents unless they're particularly large or dramatic, or if you live in a small town. And if more people choose to fly, that means more room on the roads for motorists -- which makes everyone safer!

Death & Risk: Some Perspective

Our intuition about risk does not often comport with the available statistics. We tend to be afraid of incredibly rare things like terrorism or school shootings, while downplaying the dangers of something as mundane as driving a car. The number of annual gun deaths in the United States is roughly the same as those who die in car accidents every year, about 30 000. About two thirds of those gun deaths are from suicide. Yet we tend to be quite a bit more fearful of gun violence than car violence. The fear is not proportional to the data.

It's not that we shouldn't be afraid of guns. Rather, we should be more cognizant of just how risky driving can be. The psychology of fear is not always rational, and what we are exposed to in the media certainly skews our perspective even further. This is just one example among many, of course. Summer beach season is approaching, which can only mean one thing... SHARKS!

So what should we be afraid of? Well that depends on when and where you live(d), but here's a pretty good breakdown of death in the 20th Century. If that's not enough, here's a handy list of 150 things smart people are worried about. Some responses are serious, others not so much. (I think water scarcity is going to become a big deal globally fairly soon.)

But aside from risk and fear, what do we think about the numbers? As I was scrolling through this infographic comparing death toll numbers, I was reminded of this statistic: Over seven million children die every year before reaching the age of five.

Just let that thought detonate in your brain.

Now consider how little sleep you will lose over it.

Scary. Now imagine trying not to lose any sleep if you learned that you will lose your little finger tomorrow (à la Adam Smith).

Scarier.