Have you ever wondered how people come up with the chances that a certain event will occur? Those of you who have examined statistics know that it's far away from an exact science, though often the numbers can be treated as gospel.
There was a study that recently came from the University of Colorado, Boulder detailing many statistical models for the prediction of large scale terrorist events. What was exciting about this study was it offered several different models to be responsive to just how much the probability can change.
Using a few different models, the authors of the study evaluated a database of around 13,000 terrorist attacks worldwide in between 1968 and 2007. They used all these models to predict the likelihood that a terrorist event on the scale of 9/11 had been in between 11-35%.
Thus, on a conservative level we have more than a 1 in 10 chance of a world transforming terrorist attack like 9/11 transpiring once again in another forty years. The darker predictions have a number of one in three.
Low number you say? So is the chance of a survivalist blogger getting story ideas from wired but yet here we are!
Warning: Nerding out ahead
Any statistical model is essentially a math formula that attempts to approximate actual life phenomena. While many are correct enough to determine the great majority of everything applicable (while using force of gravity to estimate how rapidly a falling object will move, for example) there is much less precision with additional complicated models.
Furthermore, changing a small variable could fine-tune how the a new probability curve can look dramatically. When trying to predict a terrorist event, essentially based on sociology, we enter into the world of an incredibly inexact science, placing things which are often intangible into numbers since it's all we can do.
That is why this study took pains to establish a variety of models to forecast the likelihood of a terrorist event. When shows such as doomsday preppers throw out single number statistics, it is extremely hard to tell what end of the conservative spectrum it laid on. Although statistics is based on numbers, there is plenty of wiggle room in it.
No matter whether you are taking the high number or the low number, this is a very high level for one more major attack in our lifetimes or perhaps the lives of our kids. When you consider making your custom-made bug out bag list, you have to consider terrorist attacks being a possibly higher probability event.
I would be extremely interested in a breakdown of the likelihood of attack by kind (biological, nuclear, and so on.) but the study gathered all of these major types together.
There was a study that recently came from the University of Colorado, Boulder detailing many statistical models for the prediction of large scale terrorist events. What was exciting about this study was it offered several different models to be responsive to just how much the probability can change.
Using a few different models, the authors of the study evaluated a database of around 13,000 terrorist attacks worldwide in between 1968 and 2007. They used all these models to predict the likelihood that a terrorist event on the scale of 9/11 had been in between 11-35%.
Thus, on a conservative level we have more than a 1 in 10 chance of a world transforming terrorist attack like 9/11 transpiring once again in another forty years. The darker predictions have a number of one in three.
Low number you say? So is the chance of a survivalist blogger getting story ideas from wired but yet here we are!
Warning: Nerding out ahead
Any statistical model is essentially a math formula that attempts to approximate actual life phenomena. While many are correct enough to determine the great majority of everything applicable (while using force of gravity to estimate how rapidly a falling object will move, for example) there is much less precision with additional complicated models.
Furthermore, changing a small variable could fine-tune how the a new probability curve can look dramatically. When trying to predict a terrorist event, essentially based on sociology, we enter into the world of an incredibly inexact science, placing things which are often intangible into numbers since it's all we can do.
That is why this study took pains to establish a variety of models to forecast the likelihood of a terrorist event. When shows such as doomsday preppers throw out single number statistics, it is extremely hard to tell what end of the conservative spectrum it laid on. Although statistics is based on numbers, there is plenty of wiggle room in it.
No matter whether you are taking the high number or the low number, this is a very high level for one more major attack in our lifetimes or perhaps the lives of our kids. When you consider making your custom-made bug out bag list, you have to consider terrorist attacks being a possibly higher probability event.
I would be extremely interested in a breakdown of the likelihood of attack by kind (biological, nuclear, and so on.) but the study gathered all of these major types together.
About the Author:
Thank you for reading! Terrance Franklin writes about nutrition and survival on a variety of sites on the web. For more information on the best bug out bag list, be sure to check out http://www.squidoo.com/bob-list-essential-kit-for-72-hours-of-survival. And for even deeper reading, follow the link at http://bugoutbaglist.wordpress.com/
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