In the fable “The Frog and the Scorpion,” a scorpion persuades a frog to carry it across a river by arguing that the scorpion must refrain from stinging the frog since that would cause both of them to drown. Halfway across the river, however, the scorpion stings the frog and laments: “I’m sorry- it’s my nature.”
Some sort of fatalistic message was no doubt intended by the author of this story, but what I take away from it is that there is an important difference between what people say, even what they most deeply believe, and what is actually true, and that that difference makes all the difference in the world. In other words, what people say and what they do are not always the same thing. Actions speak louder than words, and it is actions that really matter. It is actions that can be analyzed and aggregated over time to make useful predictions of the future.
This is the job of the actuary, and this is why, if you recast the frog as an actuary, the story would have ended with the scorpion stuck on the riverbank and the actuary as far away from the scorpion as she could possibly get. That is my purpose, both here and in life: to identify the scorpions, especially the ones everyone “knows” are safe, and control, mitigate or eliminate them. Hopefully, when I’m done, we’ll understand a little bit more of the universe and be able to do something about it.
