The Science of Fear
Daniel Gardner . 2008 . BvtLib 152.46 GAR
p001 Prologue: 1595
p002 fear of flying after 9/11, anthrax-infected mail
- p003 flying FAR safer, the drive to the airport more dangerous
- p003 If hijackers crashed one flight per WEEK, the risk is 1 in 1.6 million per flight
- p003 annual car crash risk is 1 in 6000
p003 Gerd Gigerenzer observed shift to driving for a year, costing 1595 extra lives
p005 ch01 Prehistoric Refugee
- p008 England life expectancy at birth: 1900:46y . 1980:74y . 2003: 80y
United States 1930:59y 2000:78y . Canada >80y
- p008 childbirth deaths: developing world 440/100K developed world 20/100K
- p010 June 1990 Lowenstein Mather Dynamic processes in risk perception
- p010 Breast cancer highest after 80, 99% guessed lower ages (20% guessed fifties)
- p011 Chernobyl estimated extra risk 9000, American skin cancer deaths more than 10,000 per year
- p012 cars kill far more than handguns (not if suicide included)
- 2023 Oregon guns / 134 homicides / 489 suicides / 587 crashes (20% are pedestrians and cyclists)
- p013 Aum Shinrikyo 1995 subway nerve gas, 12 deaths, obesity kills 100K/y, inadequate preventive care "hundreds of thousands"
p015 System 1 fast/stereotypic Feeling, System 2 slow/logical Reason
p018 ch02 Of Two Minds
- p019 human brain size 5MYa 400cc, 2Mya 650cc, 0.5Mya 120cc, modern 1400cc
- p020 human common ancestor 100Kya
- p021 René Descartes: body and mind separate. Gilbert Ryle 1949 scorned "the ghost in the machine"
- p022 big brain big skull, women's pelvis too small
- p024 snake phobia universal inclination, even in snake-free Arctic
p032 ch03 The Death of Homo economicus
p032 Innocence in Danger "50,000 pedophiles on the internet" POMA
- p033 Gandhi age of death: prime with 9, average guess 50. Prime with 140, average guess guess 67 (assassinated age 78)
- p039 text: "For every problem there is a solution that is simple, clean, and wrong" wroteH. L. Mencken
p040 Kahneman and Tversky Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases Science 27 Sep 1974
p041 K&T "Linda description" probability ranking, 83% guessed "teller and feminist" more likely than teller or feminist
p042 Rule of Typical Things intuitive substitution of certainty for frequent association (my words)
- most doctors choose intuition over logic
- p045 Gilbert and Sullivan Mercado Act II: Pooh-Bah:
- "Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative"
- p046 Earthquakes less likely immediately after a prior one. Earthquake INSURANCE sales HIGHEST after one.
1700 Cascadia 8.7-9.2 Mw, 325ya 40 major over 10,000 years, average every 246 years
- 28 earthquakes since 6000 years ago, average every 215 years, longest interval 345 years.
- We are near 326 years now. The next BIG ONE may make the region uninhabitable for YEARS
We should have disaster relocation insurance
- p047 60sec: "list words _ _ _ _ _ n _" (avg. 2.9)" "list words _ _ _ _ i n g" (avg. 6.4)
- cd /etc/dictionaries-common
- grep '^.......$' words | wc (15459 words)
- grep '^.....n.$' words | wc (1830 words)
- grep '^....ing$' words | wc (1121 words)
- students could think of 2.9 ......n. words in 60 seconds, 6.4 ....ing words in 60 seconds
- p047 students who thought of 3 risk boosting behaviors they behave in rated their chances of disease higher than students who thought of 8
- apples and oranges - students may be misinformed on two different axes
- 48% of US adults have some form of cardiovascular disease
p054 Canary Island tsunami hazard
- most collapses multistage events (hours to days), recurrence rate less than 100,000 years
- Ward and Day 2001 model
- 15-60 minutes for 50 to 100 meter waves hitting Africa
- 3-6 hours for 15 to 20 meter waves hitting South Africa and Newfoundland
- Spain and England shielded by La Palma, 5-7 meter waves
- 9 hours to Florida for 20 to 25 meter waves
- 2006 and later models suggest smaller waves, 10 meters in Africa and Europe, 3 meters in the western hemiphere
- p054 Benjamin Franklin: "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in none other."
- p055 less than 20 years ago (book published in 2008, hence after 1988) ... rare journalists who knew of the internet's existence ...
- There was already an ARPANET connection in UC Berkeley's Evans Hall in 1973, when I took classes there
- Summer jobs at Tektronix since 1971; nearby teams were involved with ARPANET tests in 1973
- p055 most 2008 popular internet sites (besides Google) did not exist in 1998
- keithl.com and kl-ic.com registered in 2001, rain.net (my prior home internet connection) registered in 1994
p057 The Day After Tomorrow 2004 disaster film ludicrous, but led to some climate awareness
p059 ch04 The Emotional Brain
- p061 30 cm meteorite explodes like 2 tons of dynamite, about 1000 per year.
0.3 m |
2 tons |
1000/y |
1 m |
100 tons |
40/y |
3 m |
2000 tons |
2/y |
30 m |
2 Mtons |
|
60 m |
80 Mtons |
Tunguska |
3000 m |
80 Mtons |
K–Pg (Cretaceous–Paleogene) extinction event |
- p061 K–Pg sized Doomsday rock 1/100My
p063 Spaceguard 1990s; by 2008 spotted 90% of 1.6km or larger
p064 Paul Slovic Decision Research
- p065 Nuclear power risks: laypeople say #1 of 90, experts say #20 of 30
p067 Habituation
- p070 people see risk and benefit as opposites, seesaw effect, example nuclear power
- p071 slower decisions "head", instant decisions "gut" more reflexive seesaw effect
- p072 lethality of cancer over-estimated, more media attention, diabetes and asthma ignored and underestimated
- p072 "nuclear" triggers the same intense fear, whether weapons or power or waste repository
- p078 indoor radon kills 41,000 people per year in the US and EU, nobody else to blame, hence ignored,
- unlike nuclear waste, with much smaller effects but somebody else to blame
p082 probability blind 1 in 10 million risk - 1/3 of population still worries
- KL: motorcycle death rate 3 in 10 million miles
KL: 200M adults with BMI>25: 500,000 deaths per year -> 7 in 10 million risk per day
p083 PSU GE145.M37 1996 Howard Margolis d2009 Dealing With Risk
public demands mitigation of some tiny risks regardless of cost
- p086 2004 Indian ocean tsunami killed 230,000 . Experts said unlikely, but create a warning system anyway, because the cost is modest.
p087 ch05 A Story About Numbers
p094 Herbert York chose 1MT warhead size for Atlas because it was a "particularly round number".
p096 Regression to the mean unusual results typically followed by average results
p099 Ellen Peters: more numerate people less likely to make bad gut decisions
- book 513.019 P4815i 2020 Innumeracy in the wild 2020 @ Multco Hillsdale
p101 breast implant panic, invalid lawsuits bankrupted Dow Corning
p102 ch06 The Herd Senses Danger
- p103 15 out of 50 ignored what they saw and followed (fake) consensus
p103 Solomon_Aschconformity experiments 35% conformed to actor incorrect answer
- p105 "today's fully independent thinker will have to have a thorough knowledge of biology, physics, medicine, chemistry, geology, and statistics"
- nonsense. An independent thinker can say "It don't care", "I don't know", or "I will find out".
- p110 3 number test, guess rule. People find a simple rule that works when the actual rule is different.
- the problem is not sticking to an overspecific rule, but that there are can be an infinite number of possible rules
- p112 MRI test showed activity in a different part of brain for disconfirming information
p113 group polarization
- p119 alcohol a beloved drug, kills far more people than all illicit drugs combined
- p121 "white male effect", Paul Slovic discovered 70% agreed with women and minorities, 30% (wealthier, better educated, politically conservative) underestimated risks
p121 Dan Kahan four world views: individualist, egalitarian, hierarchist, communitarian
- p123 people cherry-pick information to match their cultural predispositions
p125 ch07 Fear Inc.
p125 Security Essen 250Ksf 40V visitors
- p127 home alarm system radio ad "breakins are on the rise" . police say breakins declining
p127 Negative affect
p129 Purell scary ads Welcome to the world of Howard Hughes
Mysophobia, fear of germs
p131 Doctor's office poster pushing Pravacol cholesterol-reducing statin drug, potentially lethal
p132 Moynihan and Henry 2005 Selling Sickness at Multco Central
p133 impotence medicalized to Erectile dysfunction
- p135 Several ads for cholesterol-lowering drugs appeared to suggest non-pharmacological approaches were almost futile
- p136 Paul Slovic: Tobacco companies understood affect 20 years before cognitive psychologists
p138 neuromarketing "attach subjects to MRIs" /uh/ maybe EEG
- p142 Not less but MORE informed influenced by fear-driven political advertising
- p143 "Nobody heard what you said ... powerful emotional pictures drown out the sound"
- p144 Canadian "Low Income Cutoff" (people who aren't rich) conflated with "child hunger"
- p145 Food Research Action Council 1991 claim 1 of 8 children had gone hungry sometime in the past year.
morphed into Dan Rather "American children in danger of starving ... one of eight is going hungry tonight"
p146 more cancer because of more and older people; the death rate and incidence is falling
p146 almost all skin cancer deaths are rare melanoma
- p147 very little evidence that sunscreen protects against melanoma
p147 American Cancer Society ads paid for by Neutrogena, uncredited
p148 Dick Pound claimed 1/3 of National Hockey League players used illegal performance-enhancing drugs. source? "... just invented it ... call me a liar"
- p149 public relations companies create "news releases" that TV stations ran as their own reporting. Free content, free advertising
p150 CSPI "over 11,000 cases of school foodborne illness 1990-2004"
- compare to CDC's 76 million US cases per year. 11000/14 = 768 cases per year, out of 50 million students, 0.00157% chance per student
- p152 activists replace "likely" with "certain"
p155 ch08 All the Fear That's Fit to Print
- p157 Breast cancer in magazines: 84% under 50 and 50% under 40 . Actually, 16% under 50 and 3.6% under 40
- p157 most likely cancer age survey: 56% say age doesn't matter, 21% highest in 50s. 0.7% for actual "80 and older"
- p159 Spectacular deaths widely reported, falls and poisonings ignored
- p163 Denominator bias: X people killed ... but population size absent, no way to measure risk
- p164 birth control patch "twice the risk" ... from 3/10000 to 6/10000
- p165 US newspaper readership 70% in 1972, 33% in 2006
- p167 four criteria for restless leg, 3% actual prevalence, one symptom only in news articles
GSK ropinirole relief 73% , placebo 57%
- only one article quantified side effects
- p169 Conflict and novelty is news, 3/4 of news is "new"
p169 8571 smokers die per BBC news about smoking, one ) mad cow death merited three BBC stories
p170 1994 bestseller The Hot Zone describes monkeys shipped to Virginia with Ebola variant not lethal to Humans
- p170 1995 outbreak in Zaire massive coverage, 255 dead
- p170 1998 civil war in Congo and central Africa killed millions, almost no coverage
- p173 average male lifespan reached 80 years. Toronto Star: "The bad news is these booming ranks of elderly Canadians could crash our health system"
- p179 a few shark attacks became top network news item in early September 2011
- p180 shark stories vanished after 9/11
p182 ch09 Crime and Perception
p185 NISMART 1999: 797,500 people under 18 went missing for any reason: mostly runaways, 200,000 "family abductions;" mostly noncustodial parent keeping child too long.
- p186 stereotypical kidnappings 115 nationwide, 90 under age 14 (0.00016%)
p188 June 2002 abduction of 14yo Elisabeth Smart
- Bill O'Reilly declares "a summer of hell for America's kids"
- p190 crime as an Egyptian pyramid. 10.2M property crimes. Only the 12% small top (1.4M) is violent crime. 417K robberies. 94K rapes, 17K murders (by far the highest rate in the Western world)
- p191 average American three times more likely to die in a car crash than a murder
- p192 compared to seniors, 55-64yo violence victims 5 times more likely, 16-19yo 22 times more likely
- p193 TV murders 1400 times actual rates, mostly young men killing other young men
- p194 20% estimate violent crime anywhere near accurate, 1/3 estimate 6x actual rates
- p196 tragic death stories increase perceived risk estimates for different deaths
- p202 Willie Horton story used against Michael Dukakis first by Al Gore, then by Roger Ailes for George Bush
- p203 Clinton grew prison populations beyond Russia's, "regretted" two weeks before leaving office
p204 Jessica's Law 25 years for 18yo sex with 15yo girlfriend
p208 prison overcrowding, $37/hr overtime for prison guards, some earn >100K/y
- p210 2003-3, for every killing in school, 75 killings away from school
- p210 52M schoolkids 1997-8, 0.00006% chance of being murdered
- ridiculous digits 1 in 1529412 ... which of course seems MUCH larger than 1 in 1.5 million
- p211 NBC/WSJ poll 71% said that a school shooting in their community was likely or very likely
- p212 FDR 1933 unreasoning terror, author writes "unreasoning terror"
- p214 1/3 of children never go out alone. Almost half stare at screens for 3 hours or more. Raised like "battery chickens". Raises questions (in 2008) about the adults they will become
- p216 Western Europe homicide rates lowest in eight centuries.
p216 Lawrence Keeley War before Civilization 1996 CMill 355.009
p216 The Harmless People about the Kung San; actual homicide rate 20 to 80 times major industrial nations
p218 ch10 The Chemistry of Fear
p221 Rachel Carson 1907-1964 (breast cancer) Silent Spring 1962
- p222 Carson 1962: "Today more American school children die of cancer than any other disease"
- because almost all killer childhood diseases were eliminated by vaccination, sanitation, and antibiotics
- p223 Carson referenced arsenic-bearing insecticide in tobacco as a cause of cancer - not smoking itself.
- p225 1979 Geneva more cancer than industrial Birmingham
- p225 American Cancer Society: only 2% of all cancers caused by man-made and natural environmental pollutants
p225 Bruce Ames synthetic chemicals much less than 1% of cancers
- p226 Drinking too much water unbalances sodium and potassium levels, inducing siezures, coma, perhaps death
- kidneys can process one liter per hour
- p229 gasoline binds to a protein in lab rat kidneys, causing cancer; humans don't make that protein
p234 "epidemic of cancer" ... heart disease kills far fewer people, cancer also kills fewer people but relatively more today. Cancer is a disease of aging.
p235 Canadian childhood cancer relative risk increased 25% between 1970 and 1985, plateaued after
- p236 168 cases per million, 1% of all cases. DEATH RATE has dropped from 70 per million to 30 per million
- American and British statistics almost identical
- p237 screening programs find many more cancers, apparent incidence soars, but many cancers are static, no symptoms or progession
- p238 Bruce Ames: Not including smoking and aging, there is no increase in cancer.
- p240 1996 NAS: more than a million naturally occuring chemicals in the blood supply
- p241 1943 1.3M sprayed with DDT in liberated Naples, ending a winter epidemic of typhus (spread by mites, fleas, and ticks).
- p242 DDT fights malaria in Africa, risky, but less risky than insect-borne disease.
p243 Daniel Krewski half of Canadian public agreed that a risk-free world is possible.
p246 ch11 Terrified of Terrorism
- p247 9/11 and Gut Example Rule: This will probably happen again
p247 2001 anthrax attacks 22 infected 11 seriously, 5 died
- p248 If the purpose of terrorism is to terrify, the terrorists had succeeded.
p250 Wall Street Bombing 1920 Sep 16, 38 dead, 400 injured
- author Gardner attributes to anarchists, the bombing was never solved
p250 Risks from Worldwide Terrorism:... Bogen Jones 2005
p251 American lifetime terrorism risk tiny, de minimis
p258 Gilmore Commission (not "committee") "Building a nuclear device capable of producing mass destruction presents Herculean challenges ..."
- Saddam Hussein spent over $10B and failed
- p259 After 9/11, Dow recovered in 40 days
p259 William Dobson "... how little the world has changed."
- p267 2004 reminders of death or 9/11 increased support for the president
- p267 Scare people, then offer to protect them
p269 John E. Mueller 2006 Overblown "For the (FBI) bureau's director, absence of evidence apparently is evidence of existence."
- p270 companies lobbying homeland security officials: 15 in 2001, 861 in 2004
- p271 4 fools (without connections, money, or explosives) discussed blowing up JFK.
- JFK fuel system operator: "extremely difficult, tanks not connected".
US Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf "unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction"
p272 Richard Clarke described absurd/impossible terrorist attack in January 2005 Atlantic Monthly
p272 Brian Michael Jenkins imaginary scenarios elevated to real threats
- p274 terrorism only story for months, though chief subject identified quickly and no subsequent attacks happened.
p275 Police raid "terrorist ricin lab". No ricin, no lab, only a few recipes downloaded from the internet.
- p278 2004 bin Laden video: "Americans are full of fear ... Thank God for that."
p280 Louise Richardson terrorist goals: revenge, renown, reaction.
- p282 Bin Laden 2004 videotape: "It is easy for us to provoke and bait. All we have to do is to send two mujahedeen ... to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda in order to make the generals race there ..."
p283 Brian Michael Jenkins "attack the terror, not just the terrorists"
- p286 world spending to reduce risk of terrorism ... mat top $100B/year ... total greater
- p287 CDC: hundreds of thousands of deaths yearly because less than half receive ... preventative health services ...
- would cost tens of billions of dollars ... hmm, n*$10B/n*100K = $100K per "prevented" (delayed) death
- poorly stated, perhaps poorly understood ... by me or by Daniel Gardner
- p287 2008 budget boosted counterterrorism spending, scrapped $100M preventative health program. CITATION NEEDED
- p288 2005 Bush creates "President's Malaria Initiative" but it provides only $240M/year for 5 years"
- CITATION NEEDED; how was that $1.2B spent? What were the results? What SPECIFICALLY would more spending accomplish?
p289 ch12 There's Never Been a Better Time To Be Alive
p293 Robert Fogel "we worry about overeating when we stop worrying about undereating"
- p294 media circulation and ratings boosted by panic. One tragic child death widely reported, massive decline in child mortality rates not noticed.
- p295 61% of medical residents claim to be uninfluenced by salespeople gifts, only 16% say the same about other physicians.
- There are MANY other physicians, and if 39% of them say they ARE influenced, a resident is likely to notice.
p296 To protect ourselves from unreasoning fear ... we must learn to think hard.
p298 Baruch Fischoff, knowing outcomes changed estimates of probabilities.
Well duh, reasoning from new information changes statistical priors.
- Perhaps not accurately, but that is lack of math training, not human inconsistency
- p299 most people don't remember their specific prior inaccuracy, but why would that benefit them if it didn't matter much to them either way?
p302 Paul Ehrlich The Population Bomb 1968: Hundreds of millions will starve in the 1970s and 1980s
decade |
famine rate |
average population |
est famine deaths |
|| 1950s || 5780 per million || 2800 million people || 16.2 million people ||
1960s |
5000 per million |
3300 million people |
16.5 million people |
1970s |
950 per million |
4000 million people |
3.8 million people |
1980s |
290 per million |
4800 million people |
1.4 million people |
- In 1968, it was plausible that world population would continue to grow, arable land would shrink, and that famine deaths would soar. Ehrlich's pessimism may have spurred others to spread the Green revolution worldwide.
p324 Bibliography
p325 Risk and Reason : safety, law, and the environment Sunstein ... PSU basement HD61 .S86 2002
- more later