Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear (2009)

On August 28, 2010 · 3 Comments · In Book Review

Author Dan Gardner

Things You Might Like:

No, you’re not as crazy as you think you are.
No, the world as not as bad as you think it is.
Yes, Bill O’Reilly is part of the problem.
You probably won’t die horribly.

Things You Might Not Like:

Lots of statistics.
Being told that your Mom’s concern for you is largely the product of the fear-driven media.
Being told, repeatedly, that Bill O’Reilly is a part of the problem. (Though he obviously is.)
Anderson Cooper is, also, part of the problem.
Once again, there are a lot of statistics.

Conclusion
Gardner’s book, a counter to prevailing fear-driven media and politics, is an important book. Using undoctored statistics, Gardner shows that humans are safer, healthier, and better-off than we have been since, well, ever.

5 out of 5 Worries Proven Infinitesimally Unlikely to Happen

Aaron Simon

***

One could easily sum up the thesis of Risk by quoting, as Dan Gardner so often does, Franklin Roosevelt’s introduction to his inauguration speech:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

It is incredibly sound advice for any nation, any group of people, any individual at any time. Reason, as Gardner points out in his opening chapters, is the greatest boon humanity has and is the main factor that led to humans making the leap from hunter-gathers to city dwellers. Of course, it’s not that simple. With rapid evolution, as in the case of homo sapiens, there happens to be, shall we say, leftovers from our collective past.

This central concept, reason versus instinct, is the driving force of everything Gardner espouses in Risk. Allow me to clarify. At the outset, Gardner makes the observation that humans today are the luckiest they have ever been. For example, the homeless in Canterbury don’t have to eat their dogs for nourishment. Most people in the United States don’t have to worry about homelessness, sickness, being robbed, or being the victim of a roving death squad. Even terrorism, which seems to control American politics, yields a mortality rate less than Americans smothering themselves on accident.

That’s right, kids. You’re more likely, on average, to die from suffocating yourself in your sleep than you are to die in a terrorist attack. And yet, is this a political oratory point? Are Republicans and Democrats cracking down, declaring a war on suffocation? Nope. But we have spent at least $500 million (to be very, very conservative) on fighting what, essentially, amounts to a few whackjobs in the desert and the occasional anti-government American madman. This discrepancy between real threats (major killers like diabetes) and perceived threats (incredibly rare events like international terrorism) is the basis of Gardner’s book.

All throughout Risk, Gardner brings up example after example of events or threats that were bandied about as the next thing to doom us all. Ranging from various strains of the flu to the Summer of the Shark to extremely loosely-justified statements that sexual predators lurk in wait on the Internet, Gardner finds a common theme. First: A shocking event occurs. Second: Because this event was so unlikely and destructive, it is reported. Third: Public interest increases. Fourth: Reporting on the event increases. Fifth: Public interest increases even more, leading to fear. Sixth: Reporting continues to increase, until another unlikely event occurs.

It makes sense, and, the more you think about these events, the more you see that Gardner’s right: There is no reason to be worried – most of the time. One example he brings up is the West Nile Virus. If you remember this, then you remember the universal concern amongst, well, everyone. Common sense told us all that mosquitoes were harbingers of demise, and, if we lacked enough sense to go outside, the least we could do was smother ourselves in bug spray. Of course, as Gardner points out, there were less than 200 cases of WNV reported, and 80% of those diagnosed showed no symptoms. However, Gardner states, fear and reporting drove the perceived threat up until it was something lurking around the corner, waiting to strike our loved ones dead.

The topics, as I mentioned, are wide. But the most interesting one was the subject of terrorism. In the chapter ‘Terrified of Terrorism,’ Gardner makes so many points about the baselessness of all the fears to which the American populace has been subjected, that to remunerate them all would keep me at my laptop for a few hours. The most important fact is that the average American has a better chance of being struck by lightning than killed by people who hate our freedom. Surprisingly, John McCain wrote in 2004: ‘Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a terrorist! It’s still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave.’ Gardner points out, ‘[he] made this daring statement only in a 2004 book. ‘[in his public statements he] stuck to the standard script of American politics: We are at war against a mighty enemy.’

Gardner’s clear-headed writing brings to the attention the possible reasons why such rhetoric is the nature of American politics today. Generally speaking, it is self-interest, not concern for public safety that has politicians and the media scaring the bejeezus out of individuals across the country. It’s an obvious point to anyone who watches CNN, FOX, SKY News, or any number of other things from afar. There is no analysis in news media. Groundless facts bandied about by journalists and politicians trying to keep their jobs are the reasons we have news about tomatoes infected with salmonella, the evil Muslims who want to build a mosque in lower Manhattan, or, the one that always has me scratching my head, killer bees.

The front cover of the English edition of Risk has a blurb from The Economist (a magazine which I despise, but, in this case, with which I agree) which reads, ‘[A] cheery corrective to modern paranoia.’ And it is. This book will make you realize that if you don’t smoke, don’t go on benders every night, and generally keep kinda-okay-decent care of yourself, you probably won’t get cancer while you’re young, or the terrorists probably won’t get you (cause there’s not a whole hell of a lot of them, and the ones around us are pretty stupid), or what about you’ll understand that skepticism is a damn good thing to have when you’re looking at a newspaper.

Gardner’s main tool in the book is statistics. I know, I’m terrified of them, too, but if you’re willing to make just a bit of an effort – and you’re already reading a nonfiction, non-narrative book, so I’m assuming you are – then they’re easy to get. In everything from crime to the flu, Gardner brings out statistics that have been twisted by bad journalism and politicians. It is this method that is the only counter to misinformation: knowledge of what numbers actually mean. Once you understand that, then you understand that, even though someone may have been murdered in the city, there are only 5.6 murders per 100,000 people in 2005. Compared to London’s crime rate in 1278 – which was three times as bad – you see that, really, society has gotten a lot more gentle, despite what you may think from reading or watching the news.

See, you, as a human being, have the capacity to sniff out the bullshit in the media. But you can’t do it unless you’re willing to cut out the emotional leftovers from our savannah-dwelling days as mute apes. This, in so many words, is Gardner’s point.

His writing is that of a journalist tired of seeing his colleagues run bonkers with stories, and it shows journalism at its best. Journalism shouldn’t be tabloids, it should be information; by which I mean the valuable kind, the kind that tells you what’s what and isn’t written to sell copies of a newspaper. It’s filled throughout with statistics, explanation of the statistics, and illustrations. Even someone like me, who has an intense fear of decimal points and multiplication, can get through this thing and start to understand how to decode the language of the media.

You ask me, this book should be introduced in every freshman reading list in universities across the country. It’s an exercise in critical thinking, and an exercise in understanding exactly what Roosevelt was talking about when he mentioned ‘unreasoning, unjustified terror.’ You know, the sort of thing that only a paranoiac in a mental asylum should be concerned about.

Buy Risk from Amazon now