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 caused by those -- politicians, activists, and the media -- who
promote fear for their own gain. Culture also matters. But a more
fundamental cause is human psychology.
Working with risk science pioneer Paul Slovic, author Dan Gardner
sets out to explain in a compulsively readable fashion just what
that statement above means as to how we make decisions and run our
lives. We learn that the brain has not one but two systems to
analyze risk. One is primitive, unconscious, and intuitive. The
other is conscious and rational. The two systems often agree, but
occasionally they come to very different conclusions. When that
happens, we can find ourselves worrying about what the statistics
tell us is a trivial threat -- terrorism, child abduction, cancer
caused by chemical pollution -- or shrugging off serious risks like
obesity and smoking.
Gladwell told us about "the black box" of our brains; Gardner takes
us inside, helping us to understand how to deconstruct the
information we're bombarded with and respond more logically and
adaptively to our world. Risk is cutting-edge reading.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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