Unlikely occurrences are not miracles, OK?

I've been meaning to post this for a few days, but today's collossal media fail on the Hudson River's newest boat has prompted me to step up and do the rant thing

Stop throwing the word "miracle" around to describe things that are not miracles.

Here is what a miracle is, according to dictionary.com

an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.

A highly-skilled pilot ditching a plane in a river without loss of life is NOT A FUCKING MIRACLE.

A baby surviving against long odds is NOT A FUCKING MIRACLE

Being rescued by a search team who have been looking for you is NOT A FUCKING MIRACLE.

A miracle is a very specific thing: It's a suspension of normal natural order producing an outcome considered impossible. To call an unlikely event a miracle is to fail spectacularly at probability and language. Let me take you for a short journey into probabability land. It's not a long trek, and you may learn something.

First of all, some terminology.

  • We have events, which is basically 'stuff happening'
  • We have outcomes, which is basically 'the results of stuff happening'.
  • And we have odds, which is a way of determining how often a particular outcome will occur in a particular series of events

So, if you have an outcome, A, which is described as being "million to one odds", and you have a series of one million events, you would expect one outcome of those million events to match outcome A.

Are you following me?

So, let's look at a real-world example

Survival rate for Acute Lymphocytic Leukaemia, a subject close to my own heart, according to the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Society:

 Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL): 66.1 percent overall; 91.2 percent for children under 5

So, out of 1000 cases of ALL, you would expect 661 patients to survive

Surviving Leukaemia is NOT A FUCKING MIRACLE. It's great, but it's not a miracle.

But even if the odds of survival were 0.1 percent, you'd still expect at least one survivor and that would NOT BE A FUCKING MIRACLE.

It only takes two miracles to become a saint in the cult of the Catholic Church. Every leukaemia doctor on the planet should be canonized by the catholic church because they engineer these survival events every day of their lives.

Fuck Mary MacKillop, she's dead and can't help anyone. Laud the people who really do the job. Stop thanking god and jesus for saving your ass when it was really the ambulance crew, the doctors, the rescue teams, the pilot, the driver, the first-responder, the random stranger who admistered CPR, the fucking important human being who actually did something to avert disaster. GOD HAD FUCK ALL TO DO WITH IT.

aaaaah..... [breathes deeply]

Now, I'm fully aware that a colloquial use of the word 'miracle' has crept in, taken to mean a highly unlikely occurence, but to use such a term is to bastardise it, cheapen the language and give our religious brethren more fuel for their fires of utter crazy. If you use the word miracle to describe a merely unlikely event, you're doing it wrong. You fail at probability, and you fail at language. You're pissing in the fountain of truth and you're really winding me up. Just say it was a long shot, or an unlikely outcome. Don't say it was  a miracle.

Stop doing it. Stop using the word miracle for things that aren't fucking miracles. I do not give a flying fuck if I sound like I'm somehow persecuting the sick and endangered: Miracles do not happen. Statistical odds happen. Medical Science happens. Heroic human effort happens. Miracles do not. Do you hear me? MIRACLES DO NOT FUCKING HAPPEN.

 So shut the fuck up.

 

More coverage: glad I'm not the only one ranting on this, reddit, State Of Protest

posted @ Friday, January 16, 2009 9:34 PM

 
 
 

Comments on this entry:

# re: Unlikely occurrences are not miracles, OK?

Left by Sean the Blogonaut at 1/16/2009 11:16 PM
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I was listening to the SGU podcast today and they had Randi on talking about our use of language, redundancies, over emphasising the mundane etc.

Rarely ever do we here the right people being thanked or the focus being put on the hours of training.

# re: Unlikely occurrences are not miracles, OK?

Left by Sean the Blogonaut at 1/16/2009 11:16 PM
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I was listening to the SGU podcast today and they had Randi on talking about our use of language, redundancies, over emphasising the mundane etc.

Rarely ever do we here the right people being thanked or the focus being put on the hours of training.

# re: Unlikely occurrences are not miracles, OK?

Left by Tiffany Day at 1/17/2009 12:43 AM
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But how else could that blob of lava lamp goo have formed in the exact shape of mother Mary cradling baby Jesus? It's clearly a miracle. Just look at how that goo has benefited the world, now. It has miracle written all over it. Lava lamps can't just make random goo shapes like that on their own.

# re: Unlikely occurrences are not miracles, OK?

Left by Dave The Happy Singer at 1/17/2009 1:29 AM
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Once again, you are right, DM.

Over 150 people (who tonight are alive, breathing, and enjoying a fuck, a scotch or the company of their family) would be dead if not for the cool head and expert skills of the pilot Chesley Sullenberger.

If you attrubute the survival of these few (but still living) humans to a miracle you choose to denigrate Mr Sullenberger's brief heroic work when it really counted. You also flip off everyone who trained him and the critical work of every scientist and engineer who developed his Airbus and the craft of aviation.

If you mean 'miracle' metaphorically, you're a lazy user of language. If you mean it literally, you are deliberately shitting in the hat of Captain Sullenberger.

Two bushfires threatened suburbs of the city I live in yesterday. Many firefighters who risked their lives to protect us. Don't you fucking dare imply they should have stayed at home and waited for a miracle. Guys: sincerely, thank you.

Every day and every night, parents, children, siblings and friends are alive because of the dedicated work of real-world superheroes. If you dare to attribute their selfless efforts to a 'miracle', well, you'd best be trollin'.

# re: Unlikely occurrences are not miracles, OK?

Left by Dave The Happy Singer at 1/17/2009 1:54 AM
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Also, I don't think the Indie article you linked was that bad. They never endorsed or headlined the M-word; it only appeared in the governor's response which, though retarded and offensive, is newsworthy.

# re: Unlikely occurrences are not miracles, OK?

Left by AussieDingo1983 at 1/28/2009 9:10 AM
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Okay, if there are no such things as miracles, how do you explain George Dubya being in office for 8 years without starting a nuclear war? ;-)

# re: Unlikely occurrences are not miracles, OK?

Left by http://www.promozionicasinoweb.c at 5/21/2010 9:11 PM
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You also flip off everyone who trained him and the critical work of every scientist and engineer who developed his Airbus and the craft of aviation..........
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