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Originally Posted by beskeptical
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Originally Posted by CTM VT 2K
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Originally Posted by ToSeek
We're overdue for a 1918-scale flu outbreak. You've got to think we can't hold it off forever.
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I don't think statsitics and averages quite works that way. 8-[ |
Yes they do.
You are saying if we know the average and the range of years between flu pandemics we can't say one is overdue? Why not?
What we have is what looks like the beginning of a new pandemic but we don't know what the beginning looks like for sure. AND we have the historical average time between pandemics. Just one more piece of evidence to consider. |
It depends on the situation. If there is some kind of
cyclical mechanism that causes A to happen every x units of time on average, then the probability of A happening actually increases as you reach x time since the last occurrence. But if there is no cyclical mechanism, and the average timespan between occurrences is merely a function of the probability of A occurring at any one time, then that probability is always the same no matter when A last happened.