>This kind of innumeracy is distressingly common. I would say it certainly doesn't help that science reporting essentially never gives the numbers that matter,

>This kind of innumeracy is distressingly common. I would say it certainly doesn't help that science reporting essentially never gives the numbers that matter, nor explains what they mean. > Covering 33 randomized clinical trials with 1,877 participants That's an average of under 57 participants per clinical trial, which seems a bit sparse to me. Still, that's not my point so much as that those are the only numbers about the study in the article. Where is the mention of statistical significance or uncertainty? It's also difficult to teach, since I don't think we're naturally geared for intuiting about numbers bigger than we might encounter in nature. Also, anecdotes about people we know personally are more likely to resonate with us than mere statistics about faceless strangers (not that it explains why a few hundred Anthrax vaccine deaths of strangers would have been more objectionable than the routine tens of thosands of annual road deaths of strangers).