Treatise: about statistics

Have you ever wondered why people play the lottery, even if they are aware of the ridiculously small chances they have to win? What does this low chance or low probability really mean to you when you buy a ticket?

Ever wondered what it means that the statistical probability to roll the number 6 of an (ideal) dice with six sides is 1 to 6? What does it really mean to you just before you are about to throw?

Or what does it mean to a cancer patient when he is told that the survival chances of patients in similar stages are 5 percent? Would there be a difference if you were told that it was 95 percent?

Statistical probability is based on mathematical laws that are valid for an infinite large number of events. It is never valid for a single occurence, just for a large number of events.

Noone will ever be able to tell the result of a single throw of a dice! Maths just allows the prediction of results for a large number of throws.

It may be illogical to play the lottery; but noone will ever be able to prevent that just you will pick the winning ticket.
It may be illogical to bet on dices; but noone will ever be able to prevent that just your number will appear.
And - based upon a large number of similar cases - it may be extremely rare to survive; but noone will ever be able to predict that just you will die.

Believe in maths, accept its possibilites and chances, but be aware of its limits and more importantly of its underlying conditions!