What Are the Odds?

In times of crisis, such as this one, are most people able to accurately predict the outcomes of situations? Or do they tend toward too much optimism or too much pessimism?

I don’t think complex situations like this one can be predicted. There are too many uncontrollable or unmeasurable factors. Afterwards, of course, it will appear that some people had gotten it just right: since there are many people making many predictions, no doubt some of them will get it right, if only by chance. But that doesn’t mean that, if not for some unforeseen random turn, things wouldn’t have gone the other way.

The social historian (and socialist) Richard Henry Tawney, wrote, “Historians give an appearance of inevitability… by dragging into prominence the forces which have triumphed and thrusting into the background those which they have swallowed up.” And the (neo)conservative historian Albert Wohlstetter said it this way: “After the event, of course, a signal is always crystal clear. We can now see what event the disaster was signaling … but before the event it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings.”

In some sense this idea is encapsulated in the cliché that “hindsight is always 20/20,” but people often behave as if the adage weren’t true. In government, for example, a “should-have-known-it” blame game is played after every tragedy. In the case of Pearl Harbor, for example, seven committees of the United States Congress delved into discovering why the American military had missed all the “signs” of a coming attack. One of the pieces of evidence cited as a harbinger recklessly ignored by the U.S. Navy was a request, intercepted and sent to the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, that a Japanese agent in Honolulu divide Pearl Harbor into five areas and make future reports on ships in harbor with reference to those areas. Of special interest were battleships, destroyers and carriers, as well as information regarding the anchoring of more than one ship at a single dock. In hindsight , that sounds ominous, but at other times similar requests had gone to Japanese agents in Panama, Vancouver, Portland and San Francisco. [The analysis is most famously laid out in the 1963 book, “Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision,” by Roberta Wohlstetter, who was married to Albert, noted above.]

In addition to the intelligence reports that in hindsight seem to point toward a specific attack, there is also a huge background of useless intelligence, each week bringing new reams of sometimes alarming or mysterious messages and transcripts that would later prove misleading or insignificant. In advance of the event, you can’t tell one sort from the other.

It is hard to say whether people are too optimistic or too pessimistic. That depends on the person. But we should keep in mind that it is easy to concoct stories explaining the past, or to become confident about dubious scenarios of the future. We should view both explanations and prophecies with skepticism.

Can a full understanding of the probability of certain outcomes help reduce anxiety? For instance: would knowing the statistical frequency (or infrequency) of plane crashes help someone overcome a fear of flying? Would a smoker knowing the actual odds that he will get cancer make him less fearful of that outcome? In short, do we worry too much, or too little?

My mother worries too much. Some say I worry too little. I guess that shows a) that one cannot say “we” worry too much or too little, and b) that whether an individual worries too much or too little is not 100 percent inherited from your mother.

I was once on a plane that experienced so much turbulence that when I looked out the window, the wings seemed to flap up and down like a bird’s. I noticed, also, that the woman in the window seat next to me looked pale and terrified. Personally, I took comfort in knowing how many miles planes fly through heavy turbulence without any problems at all. So I explained to the woman how planes were designed to withstand such conditions, and told her the slim odds of anything bad happening. When I finished, she turned away and reached for the barf bag.

Some people take solace in an understanding of their environment, others don’t. For me, an understanding of the role played by chance has taught me that one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at-bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized. As someone who has taken risks in life I find it a comfort to know that even a coin weighted toward failure will sometimes land on success. Or, as I.B.M. pioneer Thomas Watson said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.”

Link to the Article