Re: Bird Flu
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Thing is, we could say that about any application of math to an actual physical phenomenon. Questions involving the distribution of cards dealt or coins flipped aren't really pure math questions either, but I wouldn't argue that "I'm due for pocket aces." At least not around here.
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It's not really analogous. Coin and card questions really are pure math, or at least they are so close to it that the assumption is okay to make. Of course, you could argue that which side a coin lands on is not really random -- since its determined by the laws of physics -- but its behaviour is almost perfectly described by the assumption of randomness. Saying you are "due for a head" is incorrect. It is not clear that saying we are "due for a flu epidemic" is incorrect, although it might be. That is, we have mounds of evidence that coin flips are independent of one another. There is no such evidence -- at least not that I know of -- that flu epidemics are.
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