X-Message-Number: 21493 From: Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 18:00:20 EST Subject: Is SARS an unlikely illness? --part1_36.3cf6ba90.2bb62e04_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In the natural world, nearly everything come from the most probable possibility spectrum. Stories in novels are always built on very unlikely outcomes. There are some specific domains where unlikely events dominate, for example in the nuclear or space industries. The explanation is simple: these complex systems are studied so that every probable faillure mode is identified and a solution is found. So, only very unlikely events can get them down. Unfortunately, there are very many unlikely possibilities and their combined probability is not negligible, that is why we have a Challenger or Columbia catastrophe. It seems the medical domain enter that same nonlinearity domain. SARS may be the combination of two viruses. To get such a cooperative infection in the first place was very unlikely, so that particular illness would not surface in a most probable world. On the other hand, if medicine can reduce nearly all probable possibilities it is a sure way to open the door to some unlikely possibility. If it is that, we may enter a rough time domain with new processes and infection modes. Yvan Bozzonetti. --part1_36.3cf6ba90.2bb62e04_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21493