Ok folks, we are in the home stretch here. Tomorrow is the big day. My last little quip before getting into things is to tell you to check out the blog post from the New York Times’ DOT EARTH blog, Science Advice for the Next President. One hundred seventy eight scientific organizations signed the letter, urging the future president to quickly appoint a science advisor….go science, go science…ahem, anyway…..
Back to the title of this post. Are you statistically significant? According to the article by msnbc, the odds that you are the person to tip the scales and cast the deciding ballot are 60 million against one, give or take, depending on your home state. In fact, you are far more likely to be struck by lightning twice.
My response to that? Let me introduce you to the starfish story, if you are unfamiliar with it.
Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf’s edge and and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.
The man was stuck by the the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.
As he came up to the person he said, “You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can’t possibly make a difference.” The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, “It sure made a difference to that one!”
Maybe one person alone can’t tip the scales, but together we can make a difference. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
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DUDE I still want my t-shirt!