Playing against Nature: Integrating Science and Economics to Mitigate Natural Hazards in an Uncertain World

4Uncertainty and Probability

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”

Richard Feynman¹

4.1    Basic Ideas

The examples in the previous chapters show that our biggest challenge in mitigating natural hazards comes from their uncertainty. We do not know where and when a major hazardous event will happen and what will result when it does. Thus instead of preparing for a known future, we have to prepare for an uncertain one. This means using our best guesses based on a combination of what we know about how the earth works and what we think about how the earth works. However, there's a lot that we don't know and some of what we think we know turns out ...