A new analysis by researchers at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford paper on the risks associated with extremely rare but potentially catastrophic events finds that the estimated probability of a “dangerous event” (such as annihilation of the Earth by creating a tiny black hole) at the Large Hadron Collider of around 10^9 per year is questionable, because this figure represents the chance of a dangerous event only if the physicists’ argument is correct.

They argue that the real probability is:

(X × PX) + (Y × PY)

that is, X multiplied by the probability (PX) that the argument is correct, plus the probability the argument is wrong (PY) multiplied by the chance (Y) that the event will happen if the argument is wrong. “If the probability estimate given by an argument [10^9] is dwarfed by the chance that the argument itself is flawed, then the estimate is suspect,” the report says.