James Fallows notes: Bathtubs should be 365 times more frightening than sharks. So why aren’t they? From The Atlantic:
A few days ago I pointed out that yet another popular news item had described how frightened an airline passenger was, about a situation that was objectively not dangerous at all.”Yet another” because stories like this — there we were, about to die! — are journalistic staples, now as much as ever. (Two examples from the NYT, here and here.)
In part this reflects the bone-deep suspicion that people shouldn’t be sitting and reading in a tube 30,000 feet above the ground. In part, it’s the famous human difficulty of distinguishing things we’re scared of from things that really threaten us. On average, one American dies each day in a bathtub accident — and one American dies each year from a shark attack. Bathtubs should be 365 times as frightening as sharks, but it’s the reverse. We don’t have “Bathtub Week” on the Discovery Channel.
How do you see this relating to church news?
All Content © 2017 Episcopal Café
I agree with Paul Woodrum. It’s like when people tell me that more people die in car crashes than air planes. If my air plane crashes, I will most likely die. If my car crashes, I’ll probably only have whip lash… maybe. It’s not a good comparison.
Beyond that, I have no idea how it relates to church news.
I have an inkling considerably more baths are taken daily than swims with sharks. The all-wet comparison doesn’t hold water.
False
Evidence
Appearing
Real
12 Steppers know about this phenomenon, so should the church…
JC Fisher