Dawn Eden Should Avoid Vegas

Via Feministe, a quote from Dawn Eden (whom I refuse to link to directly)...

One commonly accepted figure is that proper and consistent use of condoms will lower a woman’s chance of getting pregnant to 3% in one year. Sounds good, until you do this simple calculation. If you have a 3% risk in one year, your risk over 5 years is 15%, and over 10 years it’s 30%….Now it is easier to get pregnant than to get a veneral disease (the process isn’t specifically designed to transmit disease, but it sure is designed to get a woman pregnant), so condoms are better at preventing venereal disease than pregnancy. BUT getting many venereal diseases increases the chance for getting another, so risks balloon for the more sexually active people.

WHAT?!?! Have you even been to college? This is a classic example of the Gambler's Fallacy, and represents the most boneheaded misunderstanding of statistics. The probabilities of something don't change the number of times you do it, moron!

If the chances of getting pregnant using a condom are 3%, they are 3% forever - there's no mystical accumulation of probability that takes place. If you have sex once in your life, the odds are 3%. If you have sex every 20 minutes for 50 years, the odds are STILL 3%. Or as Jill said it "Dude, Dawn Eden can’t do math!!"

Idiot.