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In reply to the discussion: George Zimmerman Emerged From Hiding for Truck Crash Rescue [View all]Kurska
(5,739 posts)You're committing a basic error by treating those events as mutually exclusive.
There are only 50,000 people in Sanford, one of them is going to stop to help a rollovered truck, one of them is Zimmerman. The probability that Zimmerman stops to help a car that rolled over in Sanford is greater than 1 in 50,000 (not everyone in Sanford drives, not everyone would stop to help someone in a rolled over car etc....).
I don't know how many roll overs there are in Sanford a day/week or how many times a civilian generally helps before the police get there, but every single one is a chance that Zimmerman would be the one to help (And you only need one successful trial, you can have as many not Zimmermans as you want). If you look at it in totality, is it unlikely? Yes, but not so unlikely that it should cause you question the existence of it without any other evidence for it not happening.
The very fact that you as you are now, exist in this place at this time is a supremely less likely event than Zimmerman stopping to help a person whose car rolled over. That is why we don't disregard improbable trials just because they are improbable. Clearly improbable things happen, if you factor in every variable nearly every human action is improbable.
If you want to be woefully ignorant of basic statistical concepts, go right on, but please don't butch a field I use everyday in my work to prove some kind of "point".