Battle lines

Cry havoc and let slip the tubas of war!

It's been a long time since I reported from the front line in the War On Innumeracy.  But last Friday we had a marathon 7 hours straight of respiratory medicine from a Distinguished Physician, so of course after the first 3 hours my brain filled up and went to the happy place where all it does is trawl through my life looking for bloggable material. 

I was snapped back to reality when the Distinguished Physician said, "The terrible thing about asbestos and smoking in terms of your lung cancer risk is that they amplify each others' effects, making them synergistic.  For example, if asbestos made your risk ten times higher and smoking made your risk six times higher, then smoking and asbestos together make your risk sixty times higher."

Well, sorry to break it to you Dr Smart-Guy, but what you just described would mean that smoking and asbestos are independent risks rather than synergistic ones.  Did I stand up and blaze away at him with the Holy Machine-Gun Of Mathematics?  No, I kept my mouth shut, for two reasons:

1. In the War On Innumeracy I'm deep undercover.  So deep that sometimes I'm unsure if I'm fighting for the right side any more.
2. He's probably going to be marking us in the OSCE at the end of the year and the last thing I need is for him to write me off as that smart-arsed bastard who corrected his arithmetic the moment I walk through the door.

Still, I expect more of you, Gentle Reader.  If someone abuses mathematical jargon in your presence today, let them have it with both metaphorical barrels!