I removed most of this entry It was largely a combination of a less than fruitful attempt at a general purpose definition of error and random trivia from a number of disciplines Some particular comments An industry insurance has grown up to protect both victims and perpetrators from the baleful effects of error Removed this silly claim Many kinds of insurance are designed not to protect you from error but from acts of God such as fires and floods Unless you mean to call God and or the Universe a source of error Insurance protects you from many things that are not error including chance and intentional malice Errors occur naturally for example an error in the replication of genetic material will result in a mutation probably an unfavorable one Removed Not NPOV Whether errors occur naturally is entirely a matter of philosophical perspective There is certainly a perspective from which anything natural is by definition free of error In the case of genetics you can only regard mutation as an error if you take as given that nature wants its replication processes to be exact replication processes Irrespectively of their inevitability at law the fiction is maintained that an error is a wrong negligence a tort for which anyone who suffers damage as the result thereof must be compensated by the perpetrator That s nice Why can t this be in an article about law 09 16 Nov 12 2002 UTC