Read The Non-Statistical Man for Free Online Page A

have been talking about in the lower species. It supplants them all, and goes beyond anything they can accomplish. And human beings have it. All of them.”
    “That’s a large order of unsubstantiated statements.” Magruder’s eyebrows lifted. “I thought I’d given you some rather remarkable evidence in your own field. You want more? Very well, I’ll give you the names of an even dozen people in Wallsenburg where I finished a series of lectures last month. They will buy policies—not necessarily with your company—and will make claims within a month. You’ll find them, if you check; can I give you any more evidence?”
    Bascomb shifted uncomfortably. “Let’s say for the moment that I accept your thesis. Why, then, has intuition— particularly among the female of the species—become a stock joke? Why have men, generally, never been able to rely on the intuition they’re supposed to have? How are you able to do anything about making it usable? Surely, these colored pills, and the nonsense you lecture about—” “Did you ever watch a person read with his lips moving, forming every word?” said Magruder. “Irritating as the devil, isn’t it? You want to tell him to quit flapping his chops—that he can read ten times as fast if he’ll go about it right.
    “Men don’t always choose to use the maximum ability that is in them; the answer to your question is as simple as that. Men decided a long time ago not to use intuitive powers, and employ something else.”
    “What else?” asked Bascomb.
    “Statistics,” said Magruder.
    Bascomb felt a warm anger rising within him. That was the kind of thing you could expect, he supposed, from a broken down professor turned quack. He forgot his recent interviews for a moment.
    “I fail to see any need for an attack on the principles of statistics,” he said. “Statistics enable predictions to be made, which would be impossible otherwise.”
    “Predictions about a group,” said Magruder; “not individuals. Consider your own business. Statistical laws enable the insurance company to function, and make a profit for its shareholders. But what does statistics do for the policyholder? Not one damn’ thing!
    “Think it over; you’re not working for the policyholder. He’s absolutely defenseless against whatever assessment your statistics tell you is legitimate to levy against him. The individual gets absolutely nothing from your work. The group—the shareholders of the company—are the only ones who benefit.”
    “I’ve never heard anything quite so ridiculous in my whole life!” said Basoomb heatedly.
    “No?” Magruder smiled softly. “Let’s consider the alternative situation then^-one in which the policyholder is on an even-Stephen basis, so to speak, with the company.
    “Suppose he is able to discern—as a number of people you’ve met recently can do—the precise need for insurance which may come his way. He doesn’t need to pay premiums uselessly for twenty or thirty years, and get nothing for them; but when he sees an unavoidable emergency approaching a month or so away, he can take out a policy to cover it. There’s something he can really benefit from!”
    “Quite obviously, you don’t understand the principles of the insurance business at all,” said Bascomb. “It would simply cease to exist if what you described were a widespread possibility.”
    “Ah, yes,” sighed Magruder, “that is quite true. Insurance would become obsolete as an institution, and would be replaced by common sense planning on the part of the individual. Any remnant of the insurance concept would have to be strictly on a loan basis.
    “The same fate will be true for numerous other institutions that operate for the group at the expense of the individual—our concept of education, the jury system and criminal punishment. The advertising business as we know’ it will disappear; mass media of communication will operate only during the infrequent intervals, when