Vol. 23 No. 244 (2018)

When it comes to understanding a phenomenon, are statistics enough? Is it possible to approximate with certainty and get closer to the truth with the invaluable help of numbers? The norm, the normal, is neither more nor less the tendency of what happens the most, the most usual in a universe. But then what do we do with the rest? Do we discard it? Do we label it as abnormal, forget about it and send it to a specialist to turn it - with time, patience and treatments - to normal. Undoubtedly the understanding of diversity requires other comprehensive tools.

Nicanor Parra, Chilean mathematician and poet, explained them like this: There are two loaves. You eat two. I do not eat any. Average consumption: one bread per person. In other words, someone ate in excess and another does not cover his basic needs. The world has untiringly abused of statistics to explain the inexplicable, and to make true the unusual.

So today a selected group can pay a round trip ticket to the Moon, but there are people who walk miles to go to work because what they are paid (the astronauts?) is not even enough to pay for the bus ticket. The media title with fascination every month that they have found water on Mars while a recent report by the World Health Organization reports that 2100 million Earthlings lack drinking water at home.

Maybe someone is currently saving for a long trip, one way.

Tulio Guterman, Manager - September 2018