The Science of Fear
Daniel Gardner . 2008 . BvtLib 152.46 GAR
p02 fear of flying after 9/11, anthrax-infected mail
- p03 flying FAR safer, the drive to the airport more dangerous
- p03 If hijackers crashed one flight per WEEK, the risk is 1 in 1.6 million per flight
- p03 annual car crash risk is 1 in 6000
p03 Gerd Gigerenzer observed shift to driving for a year, costing 1595 extra lives
- p08 England life expectancy at birth: 1900:46y . 1980:74y . 2003: 80y
United States 1930:59y 2000:78y . Canada >80y
- p08 childbirth deaths: developing world 440/100K developed world 20/100K
- p10 June 1990 Lowenstein Mather Dynamic processes in risk perception
- p10 Breast cancer highest after 80, 99% guessed lower ages (20% guessed fifties)
- p11 Chernobyl estimated extra risk 9000, American skin cancer deaths more than 10,000 per year
- p12 cars kill far more than handguns (not if suicide included)
- 2023 Oregon guns / 134 homicides / 489 suicides / 587 crashes (20% are pedestrians and cyclists)
- p13 Aum Shinrikyo 1995 subway nerve gas, 12 deaths, obesity kills 100K/y, inadequate preventive care "hundreds of thousands"
p15 System 1 fast/stereotypic Feeling, System 2 slow/logical Reason
- p19 human brain size 5MYa 400cc, 2Mya 650cc, 0.5Mya 120cc, modern 1400cc
- p20 human common ancestor 100Kya
- p21 René Descartes: body and mind separate. Gilbert Ryle 1949 scorned "the ghost in the machine"
- p22 big brain big skull, women's pelvis too small
- p24 snake phobia universal inclination, even in snake-free Arctic
p32 Innocence in Danger "50,000 pedophiles on the internet" POMA
- p33 Gandhi age of death: prime with 9, average guess 50. Prime with 140, average guess guess 67 (assassinated age 78)
- p39 text: "For every problem there is a solution that is simple, clean, and wrong" wroteH. L. Mencken
p40 Kahneman and Tversky Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases Science 27 Sep 1974
p41 K&T "Linda description" probability ranking, 83% guessed "teller and feminist" more likely than teller or feminist
- p45 Gilbert and Sullivan Mercado Act II: Pooh-Bah:
- "Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative"
- p46 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
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- more later