Customer Reviews

How Risky Is It, Really?: Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts

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React fast, think later. According to the scientific research Ropeik cites in this useful book, human brains are designed to respond quickly to perceived danger, before there's time to rationally consider what the real risks of the situation are. What served us well in the age of the saber tooth tiger is not as useful for making informed decisions in the modern world, plus all those fight, flight or freeze chemicals streaming through our nervous system create their own health risk. The heart of this book for me is the second and third chapters which describe the natural biases, mental shortcuts and risk factors that can lead to making counterproductive--even deadly--choices in an effort to avoid danger, choices like driving after 9/11 because it felt safer than flying though it instead caused a spike in highway fatalities.

I read much of this same material in Daniel Gardner's book The Science of Fear. The difference between the two books is that How Risky is It, Really is designed to be a personal guide for evaluating decisions. For that it is very effective, but by its later chapters the material has gotten repetitive. The Science of Fear is not as easily used as a daily guide but its scope is broader and deeper and it concerns itself more with implications for the future and for society as a whole.

This book focuses on the psychology of how we perceive risk, complementing an earlier book Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What's Really Safe and What's Really Dangerous in the World Around You giving hard data on what is actually risky. The author, who lectures on risk communication, knows how to hold an audience's attention, and succeeds admirably in conveying serious content in popular style and language. To me, the central feature is a list of 13 factors which can make a risk seem more threatening or less threatening than it really is (Trust; Risk vs benefit; Control; Choice; Natural vs human-made; Pain and suffering; Uncertainty; Catastrophic vs chronic; Can it happen to me? New vs familiar? Risks to children; Personification; Fairness). Also noteworthy is his discussion of the role of the media in making the world seem scarier than it really is -- a well-informed discussion, because the author worked as a TV reporter for 20+ years.

The book points out how the "perception gap" can be harmful: individuals continue risky behavior unaware, while over-worrying about the
wrong things; public policy is shaped by self-interested or ideological pressure groups, or by public opinion driven by scaremongering media.
There are suggestions for you as an individual on how to identify and counteract these psychological risk factors. The book concludes with a
discussion of the public policy aspect of risk communication. It is hopeless to try to impose some purely rational cost-benefit analysis on
the public, rather one should start by taking these predictable psychological factors into account.

All these points are discussed via entertaining real examples. So the book deserves 5 stars for significant interesting content not readily
found elsewhere. My only quibble is that the people who will read this book are probably those predisposed to rational analysis, not the ones who might benefit most.

To thrive in the modern world, what we need most often is a filter--a way to sort through the noise around us and figure out (quickly) what matters. What is worth worrying about? Kidnapping or cancer? Floods or fire? Pesticides or growth hormones? Mercury in seafood or terrorism on trains?

David Ropeik's new book draws on psychology, neuroscience and very specific, real-world examples to help us build good, strong filters. It is easy to read, thorough and engaging. HOW RISKY IS IT, REALLY? should be on the desk of anyone who invests money, raises children, watches TV news--or aspires to find peace and sanity in a confusing world.

In his second seminal book on the topic, David Ropeik takes the reader on an in depth and insightful journey into the science and psychology of risk. The book is well referenced and provides plenty of factual information to satisfy scholarly curiosity, but it also provides very human, surprising, and entertaining anecdotes to shed light on how and why people perceive risk the way they do, and how that influences subsequent choices. Interested readers can take several quizzes throughout the book which personalize several of the points. As a health professional and educator, I found this book helped me to more fully understand how patients may perceive risk, how I can assess their perceptions, and how I can discuss and elicit their thoughts about risk to optimize informed decision-making. The book is also useful for students in a variety of disciplines ranging from communications to health policy. I highly recommend this book and believe it will have a provocative effect on how readers interpret, communicate, and act upon information thereafter.

I have read several books on the subject of how we perceive risks, and this one was fairly standard -- it discusses the general shortcuts we take in the absence of perfect information, such as fearing things more if we don't have control over them (so we're ok with deciding to smoke ourselves but not ok with being exposed to carcinogens at work, for example), if they are man-made rather than natural (we fear terrorists more than a tornado), if the risk affects children, etc. The thing that concerns me is that the beginning of the book discusses risk response at the biological level (related to the amygdala, a part of the brain). The author disagrees with the standard System 1/System 2 view that we have a biological-level risk response and a cognitive-level risk response, saying they are both part of a single continuous system. Which is fine, except that the author is not a scientist but rather a journalist -- an extremely well-respected journalist, but still I'm not sure he has the background to make such a claim.

David Ropeik brings together a very well designed and balanced approach to the interplay of reason and emotion in both our personal and social decisions. The old myth that reason and facts should drive out emotion in our decision making is offically dead. His 13 factors that impact our sesnse of threats is a great self-learning guide. This is required reading for any scieince communication major as well as any professional who is frustrated at the inability of the public to "get it right" about risk.

With enormous flair, David Ropeik tackles a hugely complex topic in "How Risky Is It, Really?"

Addressing everything from neurobiology to economics, Ropeik dissects (with verve and a warmly engaging writing style) what he calls "The Perception Gap," that potentially dangerous disconnect between our fears and the facts regarding health risks to individuals and societies.

He covers a broad array of subjects from snake bites to chemical spills to global warming in a highly readable lay out. The book has a number of quizzes, chapter headers, charts and stop-to-think questions about Risk Perception factors.

I particularly loved Ropeik's lingo: "Yup," "sicko doctor," and "Macho Man Stan" are just a few examples of how fun it can be to read about a complex topic when it's presented and interpreted with real stories, examples, and anecdotes. Very enlightening!

David, thank you for reminding us how important it can be, regarding health risks as well as so many other perceptions we bring to our view of the world, to "reframe the issue."

This lively, honest book is a pleasure to read and easy to digest. Journalist David Ropeik demystifies the common mental and social mechanisms humans use to evaluate danger. He explains how people often misrepresent and misunderstand possibly perilous circumstances and tells you how to weigh potential risk more accurately. Some explanations are too long and some "risk perception factors" are a bit similar, but, that noted, Ropeik's many insights are so instantly applicable that any reader will find them useful. getAbstract recommends his book to anyone involved in risk management and social policy, and to all consumers of the news.

Read more about this book in the online summary:
http://www.getabstract.com/summary/13661/how-risky-is-it-really.html

This book proves the proposition that once you limit the admitted scientific literature to those allegations of "side effect" that are least important to our lives, anything can be perceived as relatively safe.
Even if the risk of cancer is small or slightly elevated, if you ignore the mounting epidemiology linking fluoridation for example to bone cancer and only consider "tooth discoloration" as the National Research Concil Report on fluoridation of water in 2006 did, it can appear a relatively mild risk. But cancer increase is not even addressed.

"So the health risks of fluoridating drinking water are that roughly 3 percent of America's children are at risk of developing spots on their teeth. That's a real risk, but it's a long way from communism and cancer and poisoning the brain." writes Ropier. The official estimates by pro-fluoridation government agencies and experts are that roughly 1/3 of American children have spots on their teeth due to fluoride. This idea that 3% of American children have spots on their teeth due to fluoridation is not in the 2006 National Research Council report which Ropier cites as his source. What Ropier doesn't say is that 4 years after this National Research Council report recommended lowering the maximum contaminant level of fluoride (MCL) in drinking water, the EPA has refused to do anything and kept the current high level MCL. The MCL for fluoride was raised in the 1980's by EPA management over objections of scientists at the EPA concerning spots on children's teeth. And after the EPA raised the MCL for fluoride in the 1980's the rate of spots on children's teeth due to fluoride has increased quite a bit. When fluoridation began in the 1950's the father of fluoridation H. Trendly Dean estimated that 10% of children who drank fluoridated water would get spots on their teeth. Here's where the spin doctor may have got his "3%" idea. About 3% of American children are estimated to have "moderate" fluorosis - which means very bad looking spots on their teeth. But even children with "mild" or "very mild" fluorosis have visible spots on their teeth. If you add all categories of fluorosis from "severe" to "very mild" you get a much higher percentage of American children with spots on their teeth - way more than 3%. And the current figure is far higher than H. Trendly Dean or any of the original promoters of fluoridation thought would happen.

The spin that water fluoridation does not cause an increase in spotted teeth was even promoted by the National Institute of Dental And Cranialfacial Research - a federal agency. Eventually they were forced to rewrite their history of water fluoridation web page and admit that H. Trendly Dean predicted that water fluoridation would result in an increase in spots on children's teeth.

Quote: "Everywhere that fluoride is not used, dental health declines." This is utter nonsense. The facts are that dental health has improved in both fluoridated and non-fluoridated American communities since fluoridation began. No serious scientist in this field would dispute that. There are societies , cities and nations without fluoridation that have much better dental health than fluoridated American cities. Ropier also cites a study that says fluoridation saves on dental and medical costs, without actually saying where this happened. The data on dental costs seldom supports the idea that fluoridation saves money, and the few studies that claim a savings in cost are seldom published in peer reviewed journals, usually don't cite the actual data and are sometimes dependent on dubious undefined algorithms to get the desired result.

Quote: "Environmental groups oppose it because, they say, fluoride is a neurotoxin and a potential carcinogen." Here is a typical technique of a spin doctor. He writes "they say" to imply that there is no substance to the idea of fluoride as a neurotoxin or a potential carcinogen. The is plenty of scientific evidence of fluoride as a neurotoxin, especially at higher levels of exposure. There is also plenty of scientific evidence of fluoride as a carcinogen. A state environmental agency in California is currently considering whether to list fluoride as a carcinogen. The American Dental Association, the ardent defenders of fluoride, have ponied up $200,000 to try and convince the agency fluoride is not a carcinogen. Evidence that fluoride is a carcinogen goes back at least to the 1950s and is building. There are a lot of reasons why fluoride will never legally be considered a carcinogen no matter how much evidence there is today or in the future.

If water fluoridation was such a wonderful public health idea and actually saved so much money, you have to wonder why the vast majority of nations in the world have either stopped fluoridation after they started it or never started doing it in the first place. Part of the reason is that most of the world is not tied to the close minded U.S. public health institutions with their censored science. Unfortunately for us Americans, the government public health institutions can have a tremendous impact on our health by forcing the addition of what is often legally defined as a drug into our public water systems.