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Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear

3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 · rating details · 1,238 ratings · 193 reviews

In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell, Gardner explores a new way of thinking about the decisions we make.

We are the safest and healthiest human beings who ever lived, and yet irrational fear is growing, with deadly consequences — such as the 1,595 Americans killed when they made the mistake of switching from planes to cars after September 11. In part, this irrationality is...more

Hardcover, 408 pages

Published April 15th 2008 by McClelland & Stewart (first published 2008)

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Mar 24, 2012 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: psycology, 2012

This book was rather dry. With the title being fear I kind of expected it to be more dramatic. Not so much.

In this book Mr. Gardner reveals to us that the stuff we are scared of, most of the time is really not what we should worry about. He points out how the news media will pick up a story and run with it because it is sensational. Fear sells. Then we will get all paranoid about it. I could have told you that.

Pesticides for example, are not all that bad, because what we ingest is not enough to...more This book was rather dry. With the title being fear I kind of expected it to be more dramatic. Not so much.

In this book Mr. Gardner reveals to us that the stuff we are scared of, most of the time is really not what we should worry about. He points out how the news media will pick up a story and run with it because it is sensational. Fear sells. Then we will get all paranoid about it. I could have told you that.

Pesticides for example, are not all that bad, because what we ingest is not enough to harm us. They have been demonized, but without them we would all be dying from malaria. What doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger, but I think if you can at all possible to avoid pesticides, why not?

Cancer is another thing on our minds. He points out that we are living longer than we ever have, and with increased age the odds of getting cancer increases as well. Instead, we worry chemicals are causing the increased cancer. The problem is that everything is a chemical; just some are man made and most are not. Chlorine is a chemical and some people talk about removing it from the drinking water…..bad chemical…..bad! What that would do is cause widespread death from diseases such as diphtheria.

Diphtheria kills children. Which brings me to a point that was not brought up in the book, vaccination. People in this country have kind of lost their noodles over vaccinating their children. The reason for this was someone somewhere linked autism with vaccination. This has never been proven. But a whole bunch of parents have refused to vaccinate their children for fear of autism. “Hello un-vaccinated child.” Said diphtheria.

Diphtheria + child = dead

Vaccination + Child = Alive child with maybe, but not likely, autism.

Terrorism. Another thing we all fear (well, except me). The odds of getting killed in a terrorist attack in very very very small, yet we spend a shit ton of money on counter terrorism. This money would be better spent on universal health care. By not wasting the cash on anti terrorism, and covering everybody medically, the country would save so much money.(less)

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Oct 05, 2011 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: A sentient beings

Recommended to David by: The universe

Shelves: anthropology, general-history, evolution, philosophy, political-science, psychology, science, sociology, non-fiction, neuroscience, biology, current-events, terrorism

This is one of the few books that I've given 5 stars to this year and it deserves every one of them. Gardner's analysis of fear and the motivators of fear (both collective and individual) are brilliant and how these connect to ~

1. Brain
2. Media
3. The many individuals and groups with an interest in stoking fear.

His contention is that we are luckier than any generation that has ever lived, and he goes a long, long way to proving this, and yet we are more afraid than ever before. The reasons for...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Caroline rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-books

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Okay, I’ll own up. Deep down, and not so deep down, I’m the sort of gal who could walk up and down Oxford Street with a placard on my back saying “THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH”. My outlook is definitely pessimistic. This book on the other hand is the absolute opposite, arguing from beginning to end that we should be a whole stack less worried than we are. It therefore gave me a very bumpy ride. To say it was counter-intuitive was putting it mildly.

Dan Gardner’s basic premise is that we have two...more .

Okay, I’ll own up. Deep down, and not so deep down, I’m the sort of gal who could walk up and down Oxford Street with a placard on my back saying “THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH”. My outlook is definitely pessimistic. This book on the other hand is the absolute opposite, arguing from beginning to end that we should be a whole stack less worried than we are. It therefore gave me a very bumpy ride. To say it was counter-intuitive was putting it mildly.

Dan Gardner’s basic premise is that we have two types of thinking – system one is conscious thought – The Head, and system two is unconscious thought – The Gut. “Head is our best bet for accurate results but it has its limitations. First, Head needs to be educated. We live in a world of complex information, and if Head doesn’t learn the basics of math, stats, and logic....it can make bad mistakes. Head also works very slowly.” Gut on the other had works very fast. It makes snap judgements, and usually works intuitively.

The Head THINKS. Throughout the book Gardner shows with fearsome clarity the degree to which the media, politics and organisations are Gut driven in their dealings with us, and time and time again he begs us to bring our Head, our THINKING, into the equation.

Our gut is easily swayed by that which is emotional, recent, novel, sensational and frightening - and we need to fight to bring our slow-burning , thorough and thinking Head into the ways in which we negotiate the world. It helps if we are numerate. It helps if we look for statistics. It helps if we seek out the bigger picture.

The factual patchiness and ineptitude of a lot of press releases is pretty mind-boggling, and given the time constraints that journalists work under nowadays – press releases are often the only sources they use for information. Grass roots research is seldom conducted, and press releases rule. We need to work to try and see the bigger picture, not just the emotive slant and woolly statistics so often presented in off-the-cuff newspaper articles.

Companies use our fear to sell us things, and they are not the only culprits. In 1920 H.L. Mencken wrote “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” This doesn’t mean the politicians don’t themselves buy into the scaremongering. They do. But everything gets blown up out of all proportion as our Gut overrules our Head and runs down the road screaming– fired by fears of terrorism, nuclear attacks, gun outrages, paedophile activity, cancer, violent crime and chemical overload. Much of Dan Gardner’s task throughout this book is to counteract our fears in respect to these 21st century spectres. He doesn’t say there aren’t grounds for concern, but he does say that our fears are often grossly exaggerated. Our Gut is having a field day.

This book was good for me. The degree to which it poked me out of my blinkered pessimism was laudable. I therefore give it five stars. I think all grumpy old ladies should read this book at least once a year.
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Oct 15, 2011 Tanja Seppä rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This is a good book, all-in all it was interesting and lucid although not all chapters had me sitting at the edge of my seat. Half-way through the book I was intent on giving it 3 stars, but the chapter on terrorism and the conclusion made me change my mind to 4.

This book is about risk and fear. Or rather, it is about how fear makes us perceive risk. The one thing is miss is the lack of discussion of real and possibly imminent risk. Real risk is only used as comparison. The psychology of risk p...more

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Dec 08, 2010 Kirsty Darbyshire rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-book

This book is all about putting a realistic twist on all the big risks everyone thinks the world holds - zillions of people terrified of terrorism and the like. The only problem for me is that I'm already a numerate sceptic who explains to others that the risk of, oh, their kids being abducted by paedophiles or similar, is vanishingly small and takes all use of statistics in news stories with a huge pinch of salt. So I wasn't sure how much I was going to get out of it.

The good news is that it's a...more

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Apr 02, 2010 F.R. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“So why is it that so many of the safest humans in history are scared of their own shadows?”

That’s the question posed by this fantastic tract which looks at why modern man – despite having advantages which his ancestors could never dream of – is beset by so much fear. It explores how that fear is exploited and exaggerated by the media, governments and corporations – so that we are constantly told of new things to worry about, new dangers ahead and new reasons to panic.

Gardner deals with violent...more

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Apr 15, 2009 Jafar rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is the sort of the book that is nice and easy to read – nothing that requires too much of thinking to comprehend – and yet so immensely useful and informative that I’d rate it as required reading for all of us. Everyone needs to read this book or something like it. It reminded me of Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling Upon Happiness. It contains the same kind of tidbits of information and insight that can be very useful in helping us get a better grasp of what is happening to us and what is going on...more This is the sort of the book that is nice and easy to read – nothing that requires too much of thinking to comprehend – and yet so immensely useful and informative that I’d rate it as required reading for all of us. Everyone needs to read this book or something like it. It reminded me of Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling Upon Happiness. It contains the same kind of tidbits of information and insight that can be very useful in helping us get a better grasp of what is happening to us and what is going on around us. Actually, Gardner quotes Gilbert a lot.

I remember when I lived in San Diego a little girl named Danielle van Dam – I can’t believe I still remember her name – was kidnapped and murdered. I think there were also a few other cases like that in other parts of the country around the same time. It was quite amazing to me to watch all the people living in the safe and posh and clean suburbs of San Diego acting like there was a murderous pedophile lurking behind every tree of their neighborhood. I reasoned – in bad taste, I admit – with one fearful parent that his daughter was more likely to die in a car crash. Forget about car crashes. I learned in this book that children are far more likely to drown in a swimming pool than get killed by a pedophile.

The book starts by citing the often quoted and taken-as-truth assertion that “at any given time there are 50,000 pedophiles on the internet” as an example of irrational paranoia created by the media. People seem to be happy to accept this statistics. No one bothers to ask where this 50,000 number came from (a number this nice and round is definitely pulled out of thin air). How can anyone tell if an internet user is a pedophile? And what does “on the internet” exactly mean? Maybe these supposed 50,000 pedophiles are just checking their stock quotes. Why people are willing to accept such absurdities is an interesting question that Gardner attempts to answer based on human psychology.

And then he gets into an assortment of other really interesting subjects. Human psychology is not the only culprit. There are corporations that have learned that the surest way to profit is stirring fear. And it’s not just the evil and greedy corporations. Scientists, health officials, law enforcement agencies, activists of all sorts, nonprofit and charity organizations, and all sorts of other well-intentioned people do the same to push their agenda. And of course, politicians are masters of fear-mongering. Anyone remember the 10,000 (another nice and round number) Al-Qaeda operatives in the U.S. after September 11? The best chapter of the book was “Terrified of Terrorism” in which Gardner really went into the details of how and why the risk of terrorism was so much overblown.

Read this book. It can give you peace of mind.
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Nov 29, 2008 Tyler rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I had to come up with one word to describe this book it would be 'insightful.' The author cites study after study that shows how humans in general allow their gut to control their decisions and thinking. I often found myself thinking "Well, that doesn't apply to me" or "That's not how I look at it," before I realized that I am pretty much the same as the subjects in these studies. While people don't see themselves as biased by their gut or fear-tactics, we all certainly are. This isn't a book...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Sally McRogerson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was brilliant! We stress constantly; currently about swine flu, but that's only the most recent in a long list of many paranoias. This book actually quantifies risk in a way that puts everything into perspective.

One part of the book focusses on 9/11. The world gave up flying and as a direct consequence about 1500 US citizens died in road accidents. This figure can be extrapolated from the data for years before and after and the empty plane seats. GETTING INTO A CAR IS THE MOST DANGEROUS AC...more

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May 06, 2013 Moataz Muhammad rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

الكتاب بيتكلم بصفة عامة عن الخوف وأبعاده الاجتماعية. بيتكلم عن الذعر المسبب والمغلوط أو الغير مسبب المحفور في الوجدان من أيام إنسان الكهف.
"لم يوجد قط زمن يمكننا أن نعيش فيه أفضل من زمننا هذا". دي حكمة الكتاب.

أحيانا وجدته ممل عشان الموضوع بالنسبالي مطروق ، عشان كدة تصفحته ماقرأتهوش قراءة متأنية.
عموما ، أنصح بيه لأي حد عاوز يقرا أكتر عن أثر التهويل والتركيز علي الاستثناءات علي توليد الذعر المرضي في المجتمعات.

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Aug 28, 2010 Amie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Maybe it's just my confirmation bias kicking in, but this book said what I've been saying for myself for years-- I have enough REAL stuff to worry about to be bothered by whether or not I'll get blown up flying across the ocean. Thank you, Dan Gardiner!

Yes, there are things to worry about. No, we shouldn't ignore a risk just because it's a small chance. But we should be smarter about what we worry about enough to a) stop us doing what we want to do or b) pour ridiculous amounts of time and mone...more

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Jan 06, 2012 Heidi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a very interesting book that discussed what makes us afraid, and who exploits that fear for personal gain (either consciously or unconsciously). Gardner differentiates between "Head," the part of our brain that can reason and think, and "Gut," the part of the brain responsible for split-second and emotionally-based decisions. Gut works with limited information, doesn't understand statistics, and is much more influenced by emotions than logic. Unless Gut can be overruled by Head, we beco...more This was a very interesting book that discussed what makes us afraid, and who exploits that fear for personal gain (either consciously or unconsciously). Gardner differentiates between "Head," the part of our brain that can reason and think, and "Gut," the part of the brain responsible for split-second and emotionally-based decisions. Gut works with limited information, doesn't understand statistics, and is much more influenced by emotions than logic. Unless Gut can be overruled by Head, we become afraid of things that aren't really that dangerous and could put ourselves in more dangerous situations. For example, after the 9/11 attacks many people cancelled flights and drove to their destinations instead...and died, because, even with terrorist attacks, driving is much, much more dangerous than flying.

The examples in each chapter were very interesting. Gardner discusses some of the recent scares that have blown up in the media: school shootings, global warming, Mad Cow disease, crime, terrorism, and more. He uses hard science and statistics to show that each of these things, while bad, is far less likely to happen than some of the mundane causes of death: car accidents, common diseases, and living happily to old age, to name a few.

Unfortunately, there are huge industries whose livelihoods depend on making us afraid. Alarm manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, politicians, and police forces all have a stake in keeping the public afraid of things that probably won't happen. The news media knows that sensationalism sells, but there's nothing sensational in reporting on the numbers of people who weren't gruesomely murdered during the day. The more time we spend glued to our TV sets watching coverage of the latest kidnapping or natural disaster, the more revenue for media and industry.

I found the book quite interesting, but the author's smugness bugged me. He has it all figured out, there's no room for any other theories, and people, in his opinion, are like sheep. His ideas about Gut and Head are based on the theory that our brains haven't changed appreciably since our ancestors cowered by the watering hole watching for lions. I don't entirely buy into that theory, and the author's absolute certainty of his own infallibility made me think of the thousands of other scientific theories that have been proved wrong over the years.

Overall, an insightful and worthwhile read.(less)

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Nov 24, 2011 Tony Heyl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excellent, excellent book about risk assessment, probabilities, and why humans are scared shitless even when, statistically, it has never been a better time to be alive. Gardner explains early in the book the difference between Gut and Head, and why we evolved to judge situations and risks in the ways we do. This isn't really remarkable if you've read any other books on evolutionary psychology, but once Gardner gets into the topics of modern fears, it really gets good. What I like is that Gardne...more

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Jul 17, 2011 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: culture, nonfiction, psychology, science, society, top-shelf

Imagine, for a moment, one of our early human ancestors. A first-generation Homo sapiens, exploring his world with an amazing brain that would be the envy of the animal kingdom. If they understood envy. He, and his children, and their children and grandchildren will spread across the Earth as hunter-gatherers, the first beings (so far as we know) who can look at the world and attempt to pass on what it knows and learns. Their threats were simple: survive or don't. Find food or starve. Hunt or be...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rarely have I come across a book or an author who manages to provide insights into some of the most remarkable and contradictory features of our age. Gardner leads the reader through the science that seems to explain why we, the safest, healthiest, most secure people in the history of our species are plagued and often ruled by fear. He starts of with a description of the effects of 9/11. Tens of thousands of people, forgetting the laws of probability refused to fly in airplanes for fear of hijac...more

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Feb 12, 2011 Joe Robles rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The quote from the Guardian says it perfectly, "An invaluable resource for anyone who aspires to think clearly." This book does what all great books should do, teach you something about yourself you didn't know before. It also forces you to look at how you think, what may be influencing your decision making, and leaves it up to you to try to do something about that. Using psychology and evolutionary psychology it points out the disparity between our conscious and unconscious minds (what he calls...more The quote from the Guardian says it perfectly, "An invaluable resource for anyone who aspires to think clearly." This book does what all great books should do, teach you something about yourself you didn't know before. It also forces you to look at how you think, what may be influencing your decision making, and leaves it up to you to try to do something about that. Using psychology and evolutionary psychology it points out the disparity between our conscious and unconscious minds (what he calls gut & head) and how they fight between themselves for our perception of reality (with gut usually winning out).

He points out three heuristics that guide our perceptions, which he calls: the Anchoring Rule, the Example Rule, and the Rule of typical things. He points out other psychological processes and gives each of them simpler names (which makes it much easier for lay readers. I remember learning about the Availability Heuristic, but if talking to friends calling it the Example Rule might mean they'll remember it.)

As with most books about our irrational fears, it points out that we fear all the wrong things. If you've read The Culture of Fear, you may have already known this, but what this book does, quite well, is show why and how those fears happen. How intellectually we may know that flying is safer than driving, but because we drive everyday, we just can't see it. That terrorism (even with 9/11) is an extremely rare event (and if you remove Israel and the middle east from rates of terrorism, terrorism has been declining - and that includes 9/11 and Britain's 7/7). That the biggest cause of cancer is age. And that the reason cancer rates have increased is because we're getting older. That incidents of childhood cancer have increased because fewer kids are dying of diphtheria and other diseases that used to kill children before they reached age 5.

The other problem that we in modern society have is that we can't do the sort of in depth analysis that Gardner is able to do. We hear the stats on television or the stories and we have no way of fact-checking them ourselves. Many of us have heard that there are 50,000 sexual predators online. But how many of us could try to find the source, like Gardner did (only to find out it was made up).

In short this book should be read by everyone. It should be required reading in high-schools and colleges. If we aspire to be better thinkers, and better citizens of the world, then this is a good start.(less)

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Jan 14, 2011 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is probably one of the most profound reads of the last five years for me. Gardner puts the world in a perspective I could have constructed myself, if I'd thought to ask the right questions. There's nothing like being taught something completely new, an exciting, interesting way to look at things, with every lesson composed of things you already know quite well.

We live in a time with an extremely low crime rate, the longest lifespans in human history, the most peaceful time in recorded hist...more

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Sep 08, 2010 Rachael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book explores what causes anxiety in humans and then applies a basic theoretical scheme Gut vs Head to explore the role of fear in a variety of topics such as disease and terrorism. The argument is basically this: we live better now than we ever have before and the things we ought to fear we don't (disease caused by obesity), and the things we don't we rationally shouldn't (child abduction, getting blown up by a terrorist). The argument is forceful and it's hard to argue with the numbers. T...more

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May 09, 2009 Blake Nelson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book starts out well - describing the psychology of how people evaluate risk, and how come we are often so bad at it. One great example from the September 11 attacks. If there had been a single attack of similar magnitude every month for a year, then a person's risk of dying in an attack would be 1 in 7,750. In one year, a person has a 1 in 6,498 chance of dying in a car accident. So our billions of dollars spent on anti-terrorism measures would have been better spent trying to find ways to...more

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Jul 15, 2012 Aerin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, nonfiction, psychology, science

"Alright everybody, just calm the fuck down. This is not the end of the world. It's not even the end of your world. Just turn off the cable news, tune out those scaremongering politicians, and for the love of Bob don't listen to anything a commercial ever tells you. You are not gonna die from terrorism, or ebola, or pesticide residues on your apples. Your kids are not gonna be kidnapped by strangers or get shot to death at school or contract autism from an MMR booster. The crime rate's been fall...more

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Jan 17, 2010 Nick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

We fear plane crashes more than driving, AIDS more than the flu, vaccination more than the disease itself. Each one of these fears is demonstrably irrational, and yet our brains cling to them because we fear the dramatic, the immediate and the near at hand more than the insidious, the delayed and the far away. Gardner's other point is that we've evolved for good reason to think -- or react -- in this way. The dramatic, the immediate and the near at hand means a saber-tooth tiger, and it made sen...more

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May 12, 2010 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

Powerful ideas presented well. Solid. I found myself wanting to share the discoveries of my read with others, even when I had been away from the book for some time. And an enjoyable read, on the whole, although some points felt a bit belabored.

I had the pleasure of seeing Dan speak. He's an engaging, funny presenter, and I was especially impressed by how well he fielded questions from the audience.

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Aug 27, 2012 Josh Hamacher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The basic thesis of this book is "people worry too much, and they worry about the wrong things". Terrorism, radiation, "chemicals", crime, all of these present statistically minor or even insignificant threats - yet poll after poll shows people are terrified of them. Statistically significant threats, such as heart disease, obesity, traffic accidents, are routinely discounted or outright ignored.

There are many reasons for this. At the lowest level, the book presents some very well-studied rules...more The basic thesis of this book is "people worry too much, and they worry about the wrong things". Terrorism, radiation, "chemicals", crime, all of these present statistically minor or even insignificant threats - yet poll after poll shows people are terrified of them. Statistically significant threats, such as heart disease, obesity, traffic accidents, are routinely discounted or outright ignored.

There are many reasons for this. At the lowest level, the book presents some very well-studied rules of thumb about how the human mind evaluates threats. Basically it comes down to "gut" against "mind" - the instinctual versus the rational. The rational can overrule the instinct, sometimes, and when it has enough hard data to back it up. Often the gut goes unchecked out of ignorance, out of laziness, or out of apathy (unconsciously).

On top of that you have societal pressures. Politicians and advertisers are really good at pressing gut-level buttons. Journalists focus on appealing to the gut because that sells more newspapers (e.g.). Society as a whole ends up caught in a feedback loop that only major disruptive events can break.

Personally, I thought this book was a little dry and a little long in spots, but an absolutely fascinating read. While some of the statistics presented were new to me (and my mind boggles at how ignorant some studies found people to be) and really interesting, I felt the real meat of the book was the information on the gut's rules-of-thumb.

After reading through some of the reviews, though, I'm afraid this book isn't going to be enough to turn the tide of ignorance. It seems like there are two kinds of readers - people who prefer to think of themselves as basically rational, like me, who try to keep "gut" on a pretty close leash. For readers like that, this book probably won't really present any life-changing information; it will just confirm some of what you already knew and give you other things to think about.

The other type of reader, as witnessed by some of the reviews, will be completely unswayed. I suspect these are more gut-driven individuals. One review brought up as an example "sure, vaccines helped reduce the case of diptheria, but they may be increasing the frequency of autism" - the autism-vaccine link was largely a fabrication of one man and has been repeatedly debunked, but it "feels right" to some people and so they won't abandon it - and therefore are walking, talking illustrations of exactly the sort of irrationality that this book is about.(less)

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Apr 17, 2010 Daniel Solera rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: psychology, culture-sociology

The title of Daniel Gardner’s book is a bit misleading as his work is not entirely about the science of fear, but rather about the psychology or social science of fear. If you’re expecting to learn about brain chemistry in perilous situations or the physiological components of fight or flight, look elsewhere.

However, if you want a studied discussion on the cultural origins, implications and consequences of fear, then The Science of Fear will give you no reasons to complain. Gardner doesn’t immed...more The title of Daniel Gardner’s book is a bit misleading as his work is not entirely about the science of fear, but rather about the psychology or social science of fear. If you’re expecting to learn about brain chemistry in perilous situations or the physiological components of fight or flight, look elsewhere.

However, if you want a studied discussion on the cultural origins, implications and consequences of fear, then The Science of Fear will give you no reasons to complain. Gardner doesn’t immediately jump into the topic but instead takes a step back and acknowledges that no book on fear is complete without first examining ideas of reason. By examining various issues and points of view, Gardner shows the average mind in a constant battle between impulsive, instinctive thoughts (known as “Gut”) and rational, fact-based knowledge (known as “Head”). As he puts it, we need to learn to use Head to keep Gut in check, usually done with a closer examination of the world around us. In this regard, the book is very similar to Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, often citing many of the same experiments.

I agree with many, if not all, of Gardner’s ideas. It seems that we are constantly bombarded by new things or ideas to fear, the most recent examples being swine flu, earthquakes, and Obama’s so-called “death panels” (and these examples aren’t even in the book). Add to this list Gardner’s examples, once supposedly terrible public health calamities now laughably obsolete: West Nile virus, road rage, SARS, shark attacks, restless leg syndrome, mad cow disease – you get the idea. Whether the culprits are pharmaceutical companies overstating the severity and reach of a particular condition or politicians stoking the fires of the terrorist threat level to garner votes, fear of something is so ubiquitous it’s basically second nature. This is not to say that these issues aren’t serious or should be ignored. Instead, what Gardner wants to show us is that the statistics don’t back up the severity or intense media focus. We learn, in fact, that the correlation is absolutely miniscule.

I greatly enjoyed this book for its balance of psychology and current event analysis. There were many relevant experiments that I found fascinating, such as one in which people responded differently to statistics (such as saying “5 percent” instead of “5 out of 100”), or deliberately and knowingly answered questions incorrectly because their peers, who were actually conspirators in the experiment, also answered incorrectly. Each experiment serves to highlight why people act the way they do when faced with an ambiguously parlous situation. Echoing Fareed Zakaria in The Post-American World, Gardner hammers home the idea that we’re living in the safest times in human history – so why do we all think and act as if the opposite were true?

The answer to that question lies in a pernicious feedback loop: the media reports tragic, but rare stories that our Gut interprets as an immediate danger to ourselves, we respond accordingly, thus feeding back into the fear that generates additional hype and concern. But as Gardner notes, “passion and pain are no substitutes for reason” and one can only hope that readers will adopt this mantra upon finishing this book (93).(less)

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Apr 08, 2013 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Without a doubt the best non-fiction book I have ever read. This is a no holds barred look at the science and politics of fear, and how corporations and the government use fear to get money and votes. I also appreciated how this book attacks both sides of the political spectrum, logically pointing out the lies and manipulations of the George W Bush/Chaney whitehouse dealing with the war on terror and 9-11, while exposing fallacies and lies in the left-wing environmental and anti-chemical agendas...more

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Jan 03, 2012 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Mostly an enjoyable read. It's a little numbers heavy and starts to feel repetitive towards the end. A bit of extra editing to streamline it a bit would have helped, but Dan Gardner's writing style is smooth and goes down pretty easily. All in all, a very worthwhile read.

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Jun 22, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

We are safer and healthier than ever, but yet we are just as (if not more) worried about disease, health, and death than ever. Why is this? Hint: influence and profits can be had by presenting messages that speak to us on a visceral level. This hardwiring in humans may have served us well 50,000 years ago, but if we allow ourselves to be influenced by those who know how to press this button in our minds in this age of mass communication, our human condition can lead us to ill-considered decision...more

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Oct 06, 2010 Jeffrey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science

This book really should be titled "Science of Personal Decision Making, Understanding Risk in Everyday Life" but that wouldn't get everyone's attention as well. He really explains, using pyscycholgy and sociology research, how each of us is influenced by our biases, the media and our society to misjudge the true risk of everyday activities and far away concerns.

The most objective and rational reader will have to admit that he, or she, is affected just like everyone else. We are not immune to th...more

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Dec 29, 2010 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My sister in-law reviewed this book and I thought it looked interesting so I gave it a stab. Gardner explains why we tend to fear things that statistically are unlikely to happen (kidnapping) and yet don't fear the things that probably will (heart disease). This book is really about the brain and showing how our emotional and rational "brains" compete in helping us make decisions. It's fairly interesting. The last quarter of the book is spent discussing the war on terror and explaining how fear...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Charlene rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-science

Great use of statistics to show how we do not use rational thought to make decisions. While it is entertaining, his use of the phrase "my inner caveman" annoyed me.

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“Put all these numbers together and what do they add up to? In a sentence: We are the healthiest, wealthiest, and longest-lived people in history. And we are increasingly afraid. This is one of the great paradoxes of our time.” — 3 people liked it

“The rather uncomfortable feeling most of us have when we're around snakes is evidence of how this ancient experience continues to influence us today. Throughout the long prehistory of our species and those that preceded it, snakes were a mortal threat. And so we learned our lesson. Others didn't, but that had a nasty habit of dying. So natural selection did its work and the rule--beware of snakes--was ultimately hardwired into every human brain. It's universal. Go anywhere on the planet, examine any culture. People are wary of snakes. Even if--as in the Arctic--there are no snakes. Our primate cousins shared our long experience and they feel the same way: Even monkeys raised in laboratories who have never seen a snake will back away at the sight of one.” — 2 people liked it

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