Statistician and bomb. Found this on Raymond Smullyan's book ""To Mock a Mockingbird"". Hope you might like it. There is the story of a statistician who told a friend that he never took airplanes: ""I have computed the probability that there will be a bomb on the plane,"" he explained, ""and although this probability is low, it is still too high for my comfort. "" Two weeks later, the friend met the statistician on a plane. ""How come you changed your theory?"" he asked. ""Oh, I didn't change my theory; it's just that I subsequently computed the probability that there would simultaneously be two bombs on a plane. This probability is low enough for my comfort. So now I simply carry my own bomb. ""