It probably depends on the culture. IIRC in the US you only have a 20% chance of being seriously injured if you cooperate with a robber. I wouldn't be surprised if the odds were different in other countries.
edit: Zimring and Zuehl's study shows that robberies with "active noncooperation" (refusal to hand over money, attempt to flee, resistence with force) had a death rate fourteen higher than those where the victims cooperated, and that victims who simply denied having money (but did not otherwise resist) had a death rate twice as high as those who cooperate.
http://books.google.com.uy/books?id=9nH0kSUMwGIC&lpg=PA3...
However, in the same paragraph it cites Gary Kleck on the use of guns, and it says that potential victims should be encouraged to fight back, and that resistance with a gun is significantly better than the other forms of resistance (and a conclusion that it is better to fight than to flee).
It's a surprising conclusion for me (I'm mostly anti-guns, though I'd prefer some other option like, say, tasers, to be available for self-defense)
The first citations I can find in google scholar indicate that the odds of being killed during/after rape is roughly two orders of magnitude higher than the odds of being killed during/after a "cooperative" robbery, thus the differing calculus.
"This study assessed the impact of sixteen types of victim self protection (SP) actions on three types of outcomes of criminal incidents: first, whether the incident resulted in property loss, second, whether it resulted in injury to the victim, and, third, whether it resulted in serious injury. Data on 27,595 personal contact crime incidents recorded in the National Crime Victimization Survey for the 1992 to 2001 decade were used to estimate multivariate models of crime outcomes with logistic regression. Results indicated that self-protection in general, both forceful and non forceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance. A variety of mostly forceful tactics, including resistance with a gun, appeared to have the strongest effects in reducing the risk of injury, though some of the findings were unstable due to the small numbers of sample cases. The appearance, in past research, of resistance contributing to injury was found to be largely attributable to confusion concerning the sequence of SP actions and injury. In crimes where both occurred, injury followed SP in only 10 percent of the incidents. Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action."
Common sense dictates otherwise.
He could've taken those odds and handed over the money. And then, if the assailant attacked, he could've sparred with him as he did.
This is a silly point to argue, though, because i'd be surprised if the story wasn't tweaked--even just a little--to the authors purposes.
P( no injury | fight ) = 95%.
P( injury | hand over wallet ) = P(injury | fight) P(fight | hand over wallet) = 0.05 x 0.5 = 0.025
So P(no injury | hand over wallet) = 97.5%.
This is probably not the case as the attacker gains a reasonable advantage by being first (maybe only 2 or 3% in this case)
I also assumed the 50% was referring to the percentage chance of being actually harmed rather than having to fight. In which case your stats do break down.
Living life as something other than a coward.
Bravo.
I did so because I cared far more about being present for my wife and children than I cared about the fact that some assholes would enjoy the contents of my wallet.
At the time I was practicing both boxing and karate on a daily basis, so I probably had decent odds in a fight... but why bother? I can get another wallet and some more cash. I can't get my daughter a new dad.
If this makes you think I have no backbone... well I suppose we simply have different principles.
Responding to being robbed isn't an exercise in patriotism.
If you have anything substantial to lose, carry two wallets, one in an unconventional place. Put about $100 (with a few ones, so it seems like a real wallet) and some expired or fake credit cards in one as a dummy wallet.
Most robbers just want to get some quick cash, usually for drugs. So they get what they want and slink away, and you only lose $100. If you're traveling in dangerous parts of the world, the police are usually corrupt and you expect such random losses in the form of shakedowns/bribes.
So even if you're robbed, you have something left (not as good as your advice, but it sounds like it works).