TAKE an A4 sheet of metric graph paper ruled with 1mm small squares, and assign one day of human life to each square. On that page is represented more time than we can reasonably expect to live. After three score year and ten we have consumed some 25,550 days, and only about 70 per cent of the squares. This is 613,200 hours, or 36,792,000 minutes. When viewed on a single side of paper our lifetime seems short, especially when it takes us about 30 per cent of the total to mature and become proficient at anything significantly useful.

Numbers and physical space are often deceptive and elusive quantities. More than one ancient tribe adopted numbering schemes that spanned only one, two, and sufficient. And yet in our modern world we have to come to terms with multi-dimensional statistics and data spanning the infinitesimally small to the astronomically large.

When assimilating information we are naturally inclined to the analogue rather than the digital, especially when it is incidental and has to be done in a glance. Witness the rise and fall of the digital watch and car speedometer for example. But when precision is required we generally have to resort to digital formats.

Almost every week there seems to be some new major risk to worry us. Taking the Pill regularly increases your risk of thrombosis threefold, eating or drinking certain products reduces your chances of reaching retirement by x per cent, and similar are typical of headline scare stories. But quoted out of context such figures are meaningless and grossly misleading. Three times a very small number is still a very small number. For example; the risk of death from CJD is, at worst about one in five million, and at best one in 500 million. But the use of contraceptive pills is at least 100 times riskier at one in 50,000, while alcohol-induced liver failure is around one in 18,000. Worse still, traffic accidents present a one in 7,000 chance of being killed, while smoking cigarettes is one in 200.

Of course, there is always a vast range of the variables involved in estimating risk. How much beef, how often, purchased from where, prepared and eaten under what conditions?

When we only had paper it was excusable to present statistics badly, but we now have computers and there is really no excuse. Curiously, we use computers to a very high degree for explaining the outcomes and implications of political elections, sporting events, entertainment quiz shows and other trivia. But when it comes to the complex issues that affect our future we resort to gross and meaningless simplifications.

Fortunately, it is possible to get a more balanced and worthwhile view. While the established media hypes and sensationalises information, and thereby gets the message wrong, the raw information, often complete with graphics, is generally available on the Internet. All you have to do is search, examine and think. Soon we may also gain access to the models used by the experts to formulate their opinions. We will all then be as expert as the experts, and ahead of the media.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk