Survivorship bias is a type of selection bias where we have a lot of information about one group – the group of survivors, and no information about the second group – the dead. As a result, we draw conclusions based only on the experience of survived ones, not noticing the cases of death.
This phenomenon first appeared during the Second World War. American bombers had a lot of losses during the attacks on Germany. To minimize the losses, they decided to fortify the armor of the bombers. However, it was impossible to armor the whole aircraft. In this case, it would become very heavy and would not be able to fly up into the air. They decided to examine the aircraft thoroughly and mark the most vulnerable parts of it. This work was assigned to Hungarian mathematician Abraham Wald.
Now you are probably wondering how the survivorship bias is connected with hiking, aren’t you? Have a little more patience and continue reading.
The returning planes were damaged by German anti-aircraft artillery. Nearly all aircrafts had wounds near the wings, vertical stabilizer, and in the middle part of a fuselage. The engine, cockpit, fuel tanks were damaged less. Does this mean that they have to armor the wings and fuselage of the aircraft? At first glance, yes. Logically, the parts that have been damaged a lot are the most vulnerable ones.
It would be a fatal mistake if Wald didn’t notice the following. He insisted that they don’t need to armor the injured parts of the aircraft. Instead, they need to armor the parts that hadn’t been damaged by the enemy. The thing is, that if these planes, being damaged in certain places, continued to remain in the air and returned, this means that these places are not vital for the aircraft. Other damaged parts caused a crash of the aircraft. That is why we don’t see these cases.
This is how the term “Survivorship bias” originated. This discovery saved many lives during World War II and made the victory more possible.
The term “Survivorship bias”
People are guided by the same misjudgment when they say they don’t need to fasten their seatbelts because someone’s friend had a car crash without wearing a seatbelt and nothing happened to him. Or someone else had an accident with a fastened seatbelt, but before he could unfasten it, he was burnt alive in the car. Such cases are no exception. We looked at a specific case that can be called an exception. However, we forgot about the thousands of cases when seatbelt saved the life of many people and the thousands of other cases where people died because of an unfastened seatbelt.
Now you gradually begin to understand how all this is connected with mountains.
Just replace the seatbelt with appropriate hiking gear, first aid kit, or minimal knowledge of surviving in nature. Or replace the German anti-aircraft artillery and a car crash with unexpected weather changes in mountains, thunderstorms, animal attacks, the risk of being lost in the forest, altitude sickness, frostbite, etc. This list can be endless.
We decided to discuss this phenomenon, as it is very common among mountaineers or the lovers of extreme sports and causes a lot of accidents.
Someone who doesn’t have much experience decides to make an ascent to some mountain. He doesn’t have appropriate clothing, first aid kit, power bank, enough supplies of food and water. As he was very lucky, nothing happens to him. Then he starts to advise everyone, that it is not necessary to buy expensive hiking clothes and boots and you do not need to spend money on the expensive services of a professional guide. He will claim, that you can climb the mountain in sneakers and not freeze.
Moreover, he will mention that our ancestors went to the mountains long before the RedFox and La Sportiva started to produce their clothing. And these kinds of statements will become the basis for those who aren’t informed and experienced. They will hurry to repeat the same mistake.
When organizing any outdoor event, be extremely careful and competent. Calculate all the possible risks, consult with experienced people, and finally read about it on the Internet. Regardless of whether you are going to celebrate your birthday in Lastiver, or climbing Mount Everest. Do not think that misfortune will never happen to you, do not pay attention to superstitious signs. Any phenomenon in the 21st century cannot be considered correct if it does not have a scientific explanation based on research and experience. In the mountains, these studies were carried out at the cost of human lives.
We don’t persuade anyone to buy our services nor we are trying to advertise our partners. We just want people to be attentive towards dangers and be informed about mountains.
Plan wisely, travel safely!
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