This is like saying "don't speed if you don't want a speeding ticket".
Yes, you can use absolute qualifiers like "never" and "always" to stupid proof general advice to a greater extent than you can with phrases like "common sense" and "where reasonable" but that doesn't automatically make the advice any more useful..
I'm perfectly fine with the size of the drowning risk that comes with spending ~1min removing something from the oven when the timer goes off and other reasonable allowances like that. Of course I'm not gonna stop and watch TV with an infant in the sink. And if traffic's going 85 I'm going 85 but I won't be the first person going 85.
It's not like that. Everyone knows the risk of a speeding ticket comes with speeding.
Not everyone knows that it takes 20 seconds for a baby to drown in a bathtub.
> I'm perfectly fine with the size of the drowning risk that comes with spending ~1min removing something from the oven when the timer goes off
Completely making up numbers here, say you do this for every 20-minute bath, your child bathes 1x/day, and they fall over in such a way that they might drown were you not there once every 10000 baths. Doing the math... 5% chance of being absent at the critical moment * 1/10000 baths * 365 baths/year = 0.18% chance of death in first year of life.
You may be willing to take that risk, but given the 4 million infants born each year in the US, that would be 7,300 infant deaths from drowning in the bathtub annually -- so as a societal rule, saving 7,300 infants a year seems worth the use of the word "never".
The actual number of deaths attributed to bathtub drowning each year is much lower; I'm glad the vast majority of parents appear to take "never" to heart.
You forgot to multiply by the likelihood that the timer (or some other "too small to take the baby out" distraction) goes off mid bath.
When you say "the vast majority of parents appear to take 'never' to heart" I can't help but suspect that missing factor is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Yes, you can use absolute qualifiers like "never" and "always" to stupid proof general advice to a greater extent than you can with phrases like "common sense" and "where reasonable" but that doesn't automatically make the advice any more useful..
I'm perfectly fine with the size of the drowning risk that comes with spending ~1min removing something from the oven when the timer goes off and other reasonable allowances like that. Of course I'm not gonna stop and watch TV with an infant in the sink. And if traffic's going 85 I'm going 85 but I won't be the first person going 85.