Racism and bigotry have no place in our society. Bigotry and prejudice are the uninformed bias against our fellow man without support or credence. Most often they are based only on what we perceive to be our differences with our fellow man.

However, that said, it is important in a world of terrorism, nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction that we don't stick our heads in the sand. We must pay attention to statistics, our survival depends on it.

I sat on a three-legged stool in my kitchen last night. I did so without hesitation or even questioning whether it would hold my weight. Rhetorically speaking, why did I do this? I took this action because I had made a pre-judgment based on historical experience. I had a long sample of data on which to base my decision. As a rule, these three-legged stools have held my weight. 

As humans, we literally make millions of pre-judgments daily. These judgments are based on statistics and experience, even if we are not consciously counting the data.

If I drive through a green light, I have made a pre-judgment that the driver on the cross street will stop at his red light. If I had not made that pre-judgment, I could not function (and neither could anyone else.) Pre-judgments are essential to life.

What if periodically, and for unknown reasons, drivers with purple cars decide not to stop at the red light? Furthermore, let us say that in many of those circumstances this result is a car crash that kills innocent people. Let us also say that this happens month after month. Would it then be prudent to request that the police pay special attention to purple cars? Am I now prejudice against purple cars? Is this policy unfair to the proportion of safe drivers that drive purple cars but don’t run the lights?

Consider this: let’s say I am a student and every day to get to school I have to turn the corner and walk down "Tree Lane" in my home town. Let us also say that on Monday, I am heading toward the middle of Tree Lane and I see five men with purple hair heading towards me. When we reach the middle of the lane, these men with purple hair beat me up and take my lunch money. Now, say that on Tuesday, I turn down Tree Lane again and a different set of 5 men, also with purple hair, beat the hell out of me and rob me again. On Wednesday, and Thursday I take a different lane but in each circumstance, yet again, a completely separate and distinct group of men with purple hair beat me senseless and leave me lying in the road. 

Now its Friday, I turn to go down Tree Lane and see yet another completely different group of five men with purple hair entering the lane from the opposite side. If, after seeing their purple hair, I turn around to avoid them, am I now prejudiced against people with purple hair. Am I now a purple hair racist?

In essence, what percentage of the time do I need to be mugged by the purple hair people to not be a racist, five percent, fifty percent?

If my assessment of a higher statistical chance of purple hair people being muggers is valid, is it unfair to those other purple haired peace-loving non-muggers. Could ignoring my data and experience compromise my own existence in the future?

The point is, there are no easy answers here but the fact that I have merely reacted to the facts does not make me prejudiced or a racist. I have simply made a pre-judgment based on my own experience and statistics, and often, I may need to make those pre-judgments to survive. 

Somewhere along the line, we have lost the concept of probabilities and statistics. We are so politically correct, so afraid of being called prejudiced, that we ignore the most basic rules of survival.

As I said, it is important to understand that real “prejudice” is the blind intolerance of our fellow man, simply because he is different. However, this differs greatly from pre-judgments based on statistics and experience. Statistics is about possibilities and probabilities and these are generally indifferent to prejudice. Though inference provides no certainty, with common sense pre-judgments and less uncertainty, we may well find protection to our existence

It is foolhardy to ignore pre-judgments based on reasonable statistics or experience in the name of the religion of political correctness or “fairness.” Beside being foolhardy, it may be fatal.

We must also ask, where along that road to “fairness” did we forget statistics and in the case of migrants and terrorism, why do we want to increase the possibilities of terrorism in our own country by bringing in large numbers of unknown, unverifiable members of groups where statistically significant portions have sworn to destroy us and our way of life? 

The risk of being decried as prejudiced now sends grown men in tears to the bathroom floor. The correctness police have seen to that. However, the real danger is that blind adherence to correctness ties our hands and gives us a world where common sense no longer applies.

Pre-judgment based on data and well-founded experience is not prejudice. It is not even close. Consequently,  if we are going to allow unknown immigrants into Australia, the U.S. and Western Europe from countries harboring a much higher percentage of terrorism or instability, we must be aware that a statistically significant portion of them are going to bring some potentially fatal attributes with them. If we understand probabilities we will have the necessary information upon which to base rational decisions and decide if the risk is too great. In a world full of the potential of aspiring nuclear terrorists, ignoring the facts may be far too big a gamble to take.

Tom McAndrews MD (retired)