14 quotes
We need to think slow instead of fast, and resist drawing causal links between events where none may exist.
There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots (2021)
A lot of the communication now is using absolute risk, which is a huge improvement.
Understanding Risk (2020)
Life-expectancy reduced by 1 year = about 30 minutes off your life expectancy for each day with the habit = 1 Microlife
Micromorts and microlives (2013)
It’s a common human tendency to attribute a causal effect between different events, even when there isn’t one present...
There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots (2021)
Relative risks are very valuable in... low probability, high impact events.
Understanding Risk (2020)
So far, these vaccines have shown themselves to be extraordinarily safe.
There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots (2021)
The most serious problem is anaphylactic reactions, and the advice is not to inject anyone with a previous history of allergic reactions to either a prior [vaccine] dose... or its ingredients.
There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots (2021)
Relative risks are disastrous. ...Relative risks are deeply misleading. They're a manipulative form of communication.
Understanding Risk (2020)
[S]omeone is diagnosed with autism after receiving the MMR vaccine, so people assume a causal connection – even when there isn’t one.
There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots (2021)
I do math and statistics. That's what I do, so I come at the whole business of turning numbers into stories. ...How can we turn numbers into stories?
Micromorts and microlives (2013)
What we use in the book... are ways which we think might... provide gripping narratives, and yet provide a realistic way of communicating small risks...
Micromorts and microlives (2013)
This was discovered by Gompertz in 1825. There's something about our bodies, the way that we age, that means that every year our chance of dying increases by the same amount, 9%.
Micromorts and microlives (2013)
The point is... that you can make these comparisons quite easy... Hang gliding is... 8 [micromorts], running a marathon is... 7, scuba diving... 5, BASE jumping's going to be 400...
Micromorts and microlives (2013)
Probability was only invented a few hundred years ago. It's not a natural way to think at all. It's extremely difficult and complex. Anything that can help people do it, is of benefit.
Micromorts and microlives (2013)