What is Survivor Bias?
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Survivorship bias is when you say:
“Hey I’ve noticed that a decent number of people describe having encountered grizzly bears, but almost nobody ever describes having been attacked by one…… clearly grizzly bears are really peaceful and safe to be around!”
The survivorship effect in this case is that, while grizzlies don’t always attack, when they do it is so vicious and overpowering that the victim does not survive, and hence cannot recount the experience.
You could put it this way: the fallacy is in assuming that the lack of data on *failed* attacks represents any kind of useful insight into attacks in general.
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