marklpotter's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of the hardest books to get through that I have read in a long time. It's not the subject matter is hard but that you have to put the damn thing down and think on what Mr. Gardner is saying. If you live in fear in this modern society then you owe it to yourself to read this one. This is not a subtle analysis of fear based marketing or politics. This is an in your face analysis of the reasons fear rules us. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It will change the way you see things. It will make you think. It is not an escape (another reason it took me so long to get through it) but rather a view that will help take in reality and hopefully look at it from a different perspective.
jrobles76's review against another edition
5.0
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.
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.
eserafina42's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating! Everyone should read this examination of the biological reasons why we worry about things that will probably never happen and not about the things that are much more likely, and how our predispositions are exploited by everyone from politicians to advertisers and advocacy groups.
epersonae's review against another edition
3.0
A sharp little book on the death of Homo Economicus and the problems of understanding risk with our crazy crazy brains, plus a wonderful reminder that we actually live in the best of times in many ways. (He recommends a little tour of an old graveyard, should you doubt this.)
geekberry's review
Really interesting exploration into human psychology but unfortunately wrapped in excruciatingly detailed 15-year-old statistics and anecdotes. Couldn't make it.
unisonlibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
Subtitled, the Science and Politics of Fear this book was an eye opening read. I know a certain amount about risk and fear already. As a left-wing sceptic I’m aware of the desire governments have to instil fear in the populous, it makes governing much easier if the people are pliant.
Media sales go through the roof with a good scare story about terrorism or cancer, that much is obvious, but this book shows us why by telling us how human beings work on a gut-reactive, instinct-based premise of survival. Sadly this gut reaction tends not to be very well thought through, and can proved to be a very, very dangerous trait.
We rarely employ our head above our gut and when we do gut tends to be the stronger influence. Gardner tells us quite rightly that we have developed reasoning quite recently in our evolution and if a book were to be written giving equal time to each stage of human development then there would be 200 pages of us as hunter gatherers and the last page would cover human beings as part of a settled agrarian society, with the final paragraph generously given over to our time since the enlightenment. That kind of in built defence mechanism is difficult to shake off.
External operators influence beyond any levels I realised and our basic understanding of mathematics and statistical probabilities is woeful, as demonstrated in a few simple exercises in the book. With current pressure on our senses from media, advertising and government, it is becoming even harder to establish just what is a reasoned reaction to events. Gardner presents his arguments in well rounded language with detailed explanations of the experiments and tests referenced. It is at no time dry or boring despite the seemingly endless use of statistics.
There is little to disagree with him on once his conclusion has been reached, with my only quam coming against certain subjects touched upon that weren’t relevant to the central theme. Despite being a North American (Canadian) the book doesn’t feel too US-Centric, and presents much useful research based on UK findings. A book I would recommend to most people I know, and if I knew any, particularly Daily Mail readers, since the key to solving the problem of induced fear is simply to think more!
Media sales go through the roof with a good scare story about terrorism or cancer, that much is obvious, but this book shows us why by telling us how human beings work on a gut-reactive, instinct-based premise of survival. Sadly this gut reaction tends not to be very well thought through, and can proved to be a very, very dangerous trait.
We rarely employ our head above our gut and when we do gut tends to be the stronger influence. Gardner tells us quite rightly that we have developed reasoning quite recently in our evolution and if a book were to be written giving equal time to each stage of human development then there would be 200 pages of us as hunter gatherers and the last page would cover human beings as part of a settled agrarian society, with the final paragraph generously given over to our time since the enlightenment. That kind of in built defence mechanism is difficult to shake off.
External operators influence beyond any levels I realised and our basic understanding of mathematics and statistical probabilities is woeful, as demonstrated in a few simple exercises in the book. With current pressure on our senses from media, advertising and government, it is becoming even harder to establish just what is a reasoned reaction to events. Gardner presents his arguments in well rounded language with detailed explanations of the experiments and tests referenced. It is at no time dry or boring despite the seemingly endless use of statistics.
There is little to disagree with him on once his conclusion has been reached, with my only quam coming against certain subjects touched upon that weren’t relevant to the central theme. Despite being a North American (Canadian) the book doesn’t feel too US-Centric, and presents much useful research based on UK findings. A book I would recommend to most people I know, and if I knew any, particularly Daily Mail readers, since the key to solving the problem of induced fear is simply to think more!
nocto's review against another edition
5.0
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 good read and did tell me plenty of things I didn't know. Which just gives me more ammunition for playing the numerate sceptic role in future. Hah, fun.
The bad news? Well, the book covers the phenomenon of "confirmation bias" where you tend to take away from a story only the bits that backup what you already think and disregard the rest. So I think I've probably done that even with this book... how do you counter that? The author mainly wants to play down people's fears of what they consider to be big dangers but doesn't really get into what the biggest risks we face in our comfortable first world lives are. We obviously all make bad decisions about them preferring to fixate on removing some minor environmental hazard before taking exercise.
The point to take away is that we're fortunate to be about the healthiest, safest and longest lived humans who have ever walked the planet which is nice to have confirmed. (And don't believe any interpretation of statistics you hear in the news. Hmmm, the author's a journalist...)
The good news is that it's a good read and did tell me plenty of things I didn't know. Which just gives me more ammunition for playing the numerate sceptic role in future. Hah, fun.
The bad news? Well, the book covers the phenomenon of "confirmation bias" where you tend to take away from a story only the bits that backup what you already think and disregard the rest. So I think I've probably done that even with this book... how do you counter that? The author mainly wants to play down people's fears of what they consider to be big dangers but doesn't really get into what the biggest risks we face in our comfortable first world lives are. We obviously all make bad decisions about them preferring to fixate on removing some minor environmental hazard before taking exercise.
The point to take away is that we're fortunate to be about the healthiest, safest and longest lived humans who have ever walked the planet which is nice to have confirmed. (And don't believe any interpretation of statistics you hear in the news. Hmmm, the author's a journalist...)