Trends
Richard Tomkins in the FT notes that the growing belief that cancer is becoming more common is at odds with the facts, similarly the view that more people are self-employed than they used to be. He suggests this is a general trend:My small thought on this is that humans have a natural tendency to believe that phenomena of all kinds are increasing because, from the individual’s own perspective, they are. When you are very young you will probably never have seen or heard of anyone being afflicted with cancer but as your life progresses, you accumulate a growing number of such experiences, leading you to suppose that cancer itself is occurring more often. When you first get a job you will probably never have met anyone who has been laid off and had to become a free agent, but as your career progresses you meet more and more such people, leading you to suppose they are part of a growing trend.
The classic case of this is crime, he says. The longer you live, the more you are likely to have been a victim of crime, or know someone else who is. So you find it harder to believe crime rates are falling.
posted by Matthew @ 10/11/2005 10:06:00 AM
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