The Odds A U.S. Banknote Contains Traces of Cocaine are 1 in 1.11

As we head into a new year and a new decade, there’s an awful lot we’re up against: global warming and the consequent climate change, war on two fronts, various crazy world leaders’ nuclear ambitions, not to mention everyday challenges, like contaminants in our water and food, raging drivers on the road, people out to abduct our kids—you name it, we’re up against some crazy odds. But that’s not to say we can’t enjoy looking at them.

A few years ago Amram Shapiro asked himself why we are able to get information about so many subjects in our lives—through Wiki, the Oxford English Dictionary, HowStuffWorks.com and countless other sources—and yet we don’t have anywhere to turn to get information about the probabilities of everyday life. So he created that place in Book of Odds – a website that took him three years to develop using more than 1,000 independent sources of data he vetted.  It’s a database that continues to develop, filled with statements of probability called “Odds Statements” and analysis of the data. Shapiro also writes a blog.

Take a look at this video on YouTube: “What’s More Likely?” about Book of Odds:

When Shapiro first started in 2006, he worked with two students, from Harvard and MIT, and together they wrote up 450 odds statements covering an array of topics and beginning with things that had a very high probability. For example, the odds a death row inmate is a man? 1 in 2 (U.S., circa 2005). Odds a person who dies from a bicycle accident is not wearing a helmet? 1 in 1.05 (U.S., 1995). And so on. Shapiro writes on the site that this information, like most probability information, actually gives you other kinds of information as well, which could affect your day-to-day life. Read below and perhaps you’ll start wearing your helmet when you go for a bike ride; if you are a parent, you may be more vigilant in educating your young daughter about certain safety risks:

“When one thinks about it there aren’t many women given death sentences, and fewer actually executed, only 11 in that last 32 years. That virtually only helmetless riders run risk of death— or used to, since helmeted death rates began to increase in 1999—is sobering. I began tightening my chinstrap.

Other accidental pairings shed light on distressing facts. Take this one: “The odds a female who is raped is under 12 are 1 in 3.45 (US, 2004).” That is shocking in and of itself, but it is made more vividly awful when one looks for another Odds Statement in the same range. “The odds a man over 100 will die in a year are 1 in 3.56 (US, 2002)” The odds a female rape victim is under 12 are about the same as a 100-year-old man dying in the next 12 months.”

You may be thinking: so what? Life isn’t Vegas, what use—really—is there in knowing that the odds a person will die from an accident in a year are roughly the same odds a female younger than 50 will be diagnosed with breast cancer in a year? Or that the odds a woman has visited a male prostitute are 1 in 100, while the odds a man has visited a female prostitute are 1 in 6.67. Or the odds that an adult considers Miracle on 34^th Street to be their favorite holiday movie? (1 in 4.35). What can you do about it anyway?

But it’s not really about what action you take–you can try and change odds personally, sure. But the more interesting aspect is that the numbers can  put your life–and the world–into unique perspective. Take Tiger Woods and marital infidelity. The shock of his story has seeped into the American marital consciousness, as couples begin to wonder what on earth is going on? Tiger Woods, Governor Mark Sanford, David Letterman, John Edwards–is every married man out there cheating?  I’m even helping contribute to an upcoming story on infidelity for the Christian Science Monitor—timed for, when else? Valentine’s Day. When I read this blog entry of Shapiro’s on Book of Odds, however, I was genuinely surprised:

“As many of you know by now the odds an ever-married or cohabiting man has cheated during the relationship are 1 in 4.76. How common is that? Well, it is more likely than it is a man will attend a Major League Baseball game in a year (1. 6.07) or a woman smokes (1. 5.43) or an adult is afraid of mice (1 in 5)  Pretty common.”

As someone who has had personal experience with infidelity, it really did contribute to my making sense of it. You can feel hurt by things in life, you can fear them, you can want them, you can dread them. But when you see the odds of them happening—or not happening—it puts what you feel in a different light and…somehow…those numbers help you make sense of those feelings. Or maybe, more accurately, it increases the probability you will make sense of them.