From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Thu May 27 1999 - 14:50:39 MDT
At 02:36 PM 5/27/99 -0500, you wrote:
>> Only a tiny percentage of the population is composed of violent criminals.
>> Probability dictates that even if only a small percentage of the population
>> carries, it creates a significant selection pressure on the criminal
>> population (do the math; while the percentages are small, there is a huge
>> increase in actual risk to the criminal). This isn't just theoretical;
>> there is *a lot* of real world evidence strongly suggesting the validity of
>> the math.
>>
>Most of these criminals also play the lottery; if they had a degree
>in statistics they might not be ripping people off, but they don't.
Are you being deliberately dense? Since when was evolutionary selection a
voluntary process?
It doesn't matter whether or not criminals understand probability; they are
subject to it just the same. By engaging in criminal activity they have
automatically subjected themselves to these selection pressures. Some will
learn and some won't, but either way you have fewer criminals.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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