Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord —Isaiah 1:18
As a scientist, I have a certain perspective on life that may not be shared by everyone. I have had people tell me that science is great and all, but not everything in life can be boiled down to an equation. While that may be true, many things in life that we think can’t be looked at mathematically actually can and should be.
For instance, many of us believe it is of the utmost importance to physically protect those we love—especially our children—maybe to the exclusion of all other considerations. I certainly have that impulse when it comes to my family. But is that prioritization grounded in reality or is it an irrational impulse driven by strong emotions?
Dan Gardner, in his book The Science of Fear, explains how our fears can lead us to make irrational decisions. For instance, in the wake of 9/11, many people believed flying was no longer a safe option for travel. As much as I sympathized with that belief, I knew it wasn’t true. Commercial flying has been the safest form of travel for a long time, and it still was after 9/11. But the emotional impact of hundreds of people tragically dying in a freak event and the nonstop news surrounding it led many people to opt for the much riskier option of driving. The result was that road deaths rose by 1,500 that year. Hindsight may be 20/20—we know that no one else died because of terrorism on commercial flights that year—but risk assessment in that case would have provided a view of the future that was almost as clear.
Here is another example of this sort of emotional bias leading someone to make a poor risk assessment. I have a friend who constantly worries about the safety of his family. He comes from a violent and abusive background, which has distorted his view of the potential risks to his wife and children. When he and his family are anywhere other than their home, he is vigilant, on edge, anticipating every worst-case scenario, and rarely in the moment. He believes he is fulfilling his duty, but he is also exhausted and miserable, and his loved ones are lonely and frustrated.
He is an otherwise rational man, but he doesn’t understand that his priorities make no sense in light of the data. Maybe you can relate, because you feel the same way. Or maybe you have someone in your life who is like this.
Here is the reality. Unless you are in a high-risk demographic or live in a war-torn area, the odds that your family will be victims of violence are very low. Let’s look at the numbers to see why. The rate of violent crime in the U.S. is 381 for every 100,000 people, which is a huge reduction from what it was in the 1990s. That translates to a 0.4% chance of being a victim of a violent crime, depending on where you live. Put another way, that represents a 99.6% chance of your family not being victims.
Even in the highest-crime areas, the risks are lower than you might think. I was surprised to learn that for people who live in the highest-crime areas of the U.S., the odds of being a victim of violent crime are 1 in 7. That’s far from ideal. But looked at another way, the odds of not being a victim in these dangerous areas are still 6 out of 7, or about 85%.
Most of us have very good odds of remaining safe where we live. We can enhance those odds by taking simple common-sense measures, like not going to dangerous places or engaging in high-risk activities, being generally aware of our surroundings, and having a workable plan in place in case something happens. If you are not a high-value target, like a celebrity or a politician, then that is all that is really necessary.
But we don’t see it that way most of the time.
I can shake my head at my overly cautious friend all I want, but the truth is, I’m not much better. If you are like me, you see reports of terrible crimes in the news or social media, and begin to think nowhere is safe. But it is a highly distorted view. With the 24 hour news cycle and social media, we are no longer exposed to just the things that happen in our communities, but are having isolated events from all over the world funneled directly into our brains nearly every time we look at a screen.
If we assume the global average of violent crimes is the same as for the U.S., 381 per 100,000 people per year, that translates to roughly 83,000 violent crimes happening per day all over the world. Remember, that represents violent crime happening to a minuscule fraction of the overall world population. However, if we hear about the most sensational of these 83,000 crimes every day, that is far more than our brains can handle.
There was a time when all we had to deal with were the occurrences of our local communities and maybe a highly sensational crime from the national or world news. We are not equipped to handle a deluge of misery from all over the planet. When we hear about the worst of those on a daily basis, our emotions lead us to vastly overestimate the odds of becoming victims of violent crime. Or, in the case of my poor friend, personal experiences can also lead to the same place.
The truly terrible part of all this is that our emotional responses to the news or our previous experiences lead us to overestimate the risks of violent crime while ignoring other factors that pose far greater risks to the well-being of our families.
Author Rob Henderson, who has studied social trends extensively, has identified what is by far the greatest risk to the well-being of children. It is not bullying, gun violence, poverty, racism, car accidents, drowning, or disease. It is instability at home. The statistics clearly show that the breakdown of families is far more damaging to children than anything else, including poverty and racism. The personal risk of dying in a car accident is far greater than the risk of dying in a plane crash, but we’re so inured to the emotional impact of death by car accidents that most of us still get in our cars every day. But we hear about one airliner crash, and suddenly we’re canceling our vacation plans. In a similar way, we’re inured to the emotional impact of instability at home, so we don’t worry about it. Instead, we focus on keeping our children as physically safe as we can, even though the former is a far greater risk to the well-being of children than a random tragedy.
Children are also far more likely to be seriously harmed by depression and anxiety due to social media overuse, loneliness, and poor lifestyle than any external physical dangers. That’s because we hyper-focus on those things that trigger our emotions while minimizing or ignoring the much greater risks to children’s well-being that are less emotionally impactful.
Now, having said all this, I do not condone worrying about the things that actually do pose a risk to our children. We are reminded over and over in scripture of the futility of worry, and that it is not a fruit of the Spirit.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. —John 14:27
Should we be concerned about some things? Yes. Should we prepare to take action when necessary? Yes. But stressing over things? No.
In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety. —Psalm 4:8
Most of the terrible things we worry about will never come to pass. This is where we all need to be more like scientists. Some aspects of the human condition can be better understood through the cold reality of numbers.