Paul Slovic probably knows more about the peculiarities of human judgment of risk than any other individual. His work offers a picture of Mr. and Ms. Citizen that is far from flattering: guided by emotion rather than by reason, easily swayed by trivial details, and inadequately sensitive to differences between low and negligibly low probabilities. Slovic has also studied experts, who are clearly superior in dealing with numbers and amounts. Experts show many of the same biases as the rest of us in attenuated form, but often their judgments and preferences about risks diverge from those of
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