Errata: Twice the Risk
The idea: a risk that doubles is only frightening or reassuring once you know what it doubled from.
Read it
Who is in this book
- Widen One number means little without something to compare it with from NewsForge
- Deed Go to the original document, not a summary of a summary from NewsForge
- Danya a child of the Green Asks "how do we know?"
- Attest Every claim names its source, and a correction names one too from NewsForge
- Tara a child of the Green Listens longest, speaks last
Every recurring character has a short tune, so you can tell who is on stage before a word is said. The tunes play only when you tap, and the Reading Access sound switch turns them off.
The Honest Page
Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?
True
- Relative risk compares the chance of something in one group with the chance in another, so 'twice the risk' is a relative risk of two. Absolute risk is the chance itself, such as one in ten thousand. The same relative risk can mean a big or a tiny change, depending on where it starts. Source
- Two in ten thousand is twice one in ten thousand and one more in ten thousand. Of 1,500 people, two in ten thousand is 0.3 and one in ten thousand is 0.15; one divided by 0.15 is about 6.7 and one divided by 0.3 is about 3.3.
- In the European Union and the United Kingdom, drinks with more than 150 milligrams of caffeine per litre must be labelled as not recommended for children. Source
Stretched
- In the case, a single study is read and settled in one afternoon. What we simplified: Real health research is judged across many studies, and a study that only compares groups cannot show that one thing caused another. A doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist is the right person to ask about your own health.
Made up
- The study, its numbers, the press release, the canteen, Nurse Adeyemi, Ollie, Joel and the Green Gazette's front page are made up. The idea of relative and absolute risk is real.
Tara’s sentence
The case stops where Tara speaks. Write the sentence you would have said. It stays on this device.
Kept.
Your sentence lives on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Ring the hammer for someone
Pick this book for someone younger. The link carries only the book, and it will wait for them on the Green.