Ropeik - How Risky Is It, Really?

Praise for
How Risky Is It, Really?

The perception (and misperception) of risk has profound effects on everything from environmental policy to foreign policy, from our health and consumer decisions to our sense of security and well-being. It is a topic at the frontier of research in cognitive science, economics, and political science. This book is a clear, balanced, and lively introduction to this crucial body of knowledge.

Steven Pinker,
bestselling author of How the Mind Works

How Risky Is It, Really? is going to change the way people think.

Lester R. Brown,
President, Earth Policy Institute,
and author of Plan B

Our problems with accurate risk assessment have serious consequenceswe worry ourselves sick over trivialities, pay to protect ourselves from the wrong things, avoid something we deem risky by doing something riskier. In this clever, accessible, and surprisingly nonjudgmental book, David Ropeik tackles this subject, ranging from the realms of psychology and neuroscience to funny, winning self-reflection. It is both a field monograph about the foibles of one species as well as a self-help manual. Read this book, think about it, and you will be both safer and saner.

Robert M. Sapolsky, Ph.D.,
author of Why Zebras Dont Get Ulcers

Why Our Fears Dont Always Match the Facts

DAVID ROPEIK

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ISBN: 978-0-07-163564-6

MHID: 0-07-163564-5

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To Toby, for her wisdom, patience, insight, and support.

To Rachel, Matt, and Ina, for their ideas and enthusiasm.

To Misha and Yuri, for waiting so patiently to go for their daily walk.

And to my friends and fellow travelers... may you make healthy choices.

This book is a woefully brief introduction to the wisdom and research findings of many people. To their work, I have added my experience as a journalist, my interpretations, clarifications, and emphases. For anything that accurately reflects their findings, they deserve the true credit. For any errors or omissions, I deserve the blame.

In addition to those already cited in this book, I am deeply grateful to Paul Slovic, a pioneer in research on the perception of risk; he has graciously supported my efforts to summarize the findings of that field and bring those insights to a wider audience. I am also grateful to other leaders in this field, including Baruch Fischhoff, Sarah Lichtenstein, and Melissa Finucane, whose findings have contributed significantly to my thinking and to the foundation for this book.

In the field of neuroscience, I am grateful for my informal editor, Caroline Davis, a graduate student who studies the amygdala in the lab of Paul Whalen at Dartmouths Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences, and for guidance in the past from Joseph LeDoux and Liz Phelps of New York University.

I am grateful to many people who shared their time and thoughts: Sheldon Krimsky at Tufts, Steve Woloshin at Dartmouth, Daniel Kahan at Yale Law School, Matthew Adler at University of Pennsylvania Law School, John Evans at Harvard, George Lowenstein at Carnegie Mellon, Ellen Peters at the University of Oregon, Jonathan Weiner at Duke, Dr. Matthew Friedman of the Veterans Administration, Robert Sapolsky at Stamford, Denis Mileti of the University of Colorado, Vivenne Parry of the BBC, and Marc Poumadere of LEcole Normale Superieure.

Thanks to Lester Brown for the push to write this. And thanks to all my friends and colleagues who showed sincere interest in this projector at least faked it really welland helped me with lots of ideas and encouragement.

By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness.

ERICH MARIA REMARQUE, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

The auditorium was jammed. The TV cameras were lined up down in front, aimed back at the crowd, ready to roll at the first loud voice. The moderator opened the floor to comments. Susan Napolitano leaped to her feet, her eyes wide and her face red.