Book Review of 'Risk - The Science and Politics of Fear' By Dan Gardner

According to Gardner, our misjudgments originally stem from the fact that our brains have evolved to deal, rather properly, with the sort of immediate dangers that we have historically encountered as a species, say as hunter-gatherers in the African savannah. But it is this identical evolution that makes our brains singularly ill-adapted to the complexities of the modern 21st Century urban jungle and causes us to make egregious blunders.

At the heart of Gardner's explanation lies the idea that we have two various internal systems to react to events: roughly summarised as 'head' and 'gut'. 'Head', a rational, reflective, but also slow-acting technique, is usually overridden by 'gut', a much more intuitive, fast-acting program, which bases its recommendations on aspects such as precedent and recency. For example, in the case of stressful situations, 'head' barely gets a say, and if so, then typically too late.

Historically, 'gut' has served us extremely nicely. The fact that we have a vivid current memory of an occasion (say a landslide) colours our perception of the present threat of such an event, which, by and large, highlights the far more imminent current dangers.

In a society such as ours, yet, where we are constantly bombarded with - in specific - images and stories of extreme, but quite uncommon events, that identical 'gut' leads us to overestimate the importance of spectacular (but rather rare) events, and conversely underestimate the importance of low-key (but prevalent and very unsafe) events.

One of the countless striking examples of the book is that this incorrect perception of risk led to 1500 additional deaths (one other 50% above the original death toll) immediately after 9/11. After being exposed to the incessant coverage of the occasion, a large number of Americans switched from air travel to road travel. This is apparent from diverse statistics, such as airline passenger numbers, road toll figures, etc. Regrettably, when you look at the time series of road deaths in the US, you will see a fairly flat series, except for a pronounced spike in the 12 months immediately after 9/11, corresponding roughly to 1500 excess deaths, which could have been avoided, had these and various other men and women not been unnecessarily scared by an particularly rare occasion.

Gardner does a highly excellent job of explaining the varied players that reinforce these irrational fears of ours, such as the media, who can only be profitable if they produce spectacular stories, and our politicians, who are regularly most thriving by stoking a offered fear and then becoming observed to counteract the perceived danger.

What is especially valuable is the way Gardner explains how seemingly objective 'facts' or figures can normally be particularly misleading. Thus, for example, the truth that some cancer rates in the West are going up stems from the truth that people today are NOT dying from other illnesses, living longer lives, and as a result have a superior opportunity to - sooner or later - be afflicted with cancer.

One more striking example of (irrational) worry is crime rates, which have, in reality, been falling across the board over the final few decades in distinct violent crime, which includes crimes against youngsters.

Gardner's book, apart from becoming a decent and enjoyable read, is also fundamentally quite reassuring. Basically, it demonstrates that we have never ever been as safe or healthy as we are now.