Conformation Bias
NOBODY I know is sick ..... it must all be nonsense
Admittedly, I wish I had a nickel for every time some version of that has been mentioned --
Best example is polls - "have you ever answered a poll? I haven't and no one I know has".
But it's also not without merit - no one I have ever known has ever won big in a lottery or Publisher's Clearing House,
yet somehow there are thousands of winners. I guarantee someone you know doubts they give the money away.
Me, I go by the data - if I can trust it. And I've seen all different ways of viewing the same information.
One of the more exasperating things I've seen is to look at your chance of being killed, dying, shot or what have you as being UTTERLY random and without regard to circumstances. For example, if a certain amount of people get shot in Baltimore, the reasoning is that every time you go to any part of Baltimore, you run the same risk as anyone else. And that's patently false.
When we were little, my mom heard a statistic that most car accidents happen near your home - so when we were coming home from a long trip, she's ask us to buckle up and my dad to drive safely - ignoring the obvious reason that they occur near home because that's where most of your driving occurs.
You might run the risk of getting hit by lightning - but it's pretty much zero if you exercise precaution.