INSIDE STATISTICS

ON MARCH 8, 2014, a hitherto yet-to-be-unravelled tragedy occurred. Air Malaysia MH370 en route to Beijing vanished from the radar and headed into the deep waters of the ocean. The world mobilised sea-goers and expertise to secure the black box of the plane and the fuselage.

Experts went to sea and a ping was reported here and there. Bayesian probability theory went into overdrive, based on the belief and analysis of the pings suggesting thus where the remains of MH370 could be.

Frequentists would need more disasters to create enough samples that could help them calculate the probability of locating where MH370 disappeared into taking with human suffering of unmatched proportions.

A frenzy of research descended on the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean.

In March 2016, hope was raised as flotsam presented itself on the shores of Mauritius and Mozambique. But the debris that was statistically associated with MH370 was in fact conclusively proven to be that of a Boeing 777.

And so despite technological advancement and detection through satellite devices, the mysterious disappearance of MH370 remains undiscovered to this day.

Similarly, the self-inflicted economic and social tragedy caused by apartheid has left debris and flotsam.

However, through struggle, South Africans gained tools to enable them to begin the long walk of dealing with post-apartheid challenges.

The past 10 years have revealed even more flotsam and debris, with the explosion coming out of the exposure of the Gupta e-mail leaks, which showed how the Indian migrant family spun webs across