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Dont hit the panic button | By genre | guardian.co.uk Books
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Mar 14, 7:37am
1 review
•http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/p...
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Humanity has never had it so good. Most people around the world are better off and will live longer than their ancestors. If we could hold on to that perspective, we would all be much more relaxed. But we aren't relaxed. We are anxious and stressed. We are scared that bad things will happen to us: nuclear war, cancer, child abduction. As for keeping things in perspective, Homo sapiens just isn't cut out for it...
Evolution has taught us to prioritise anecdotal evidence because, unlike statistics, our imaginations can process it into something resembling our personal experience. 'It could have been me' is a common response to news of a disaster, although usually the mathematical probability of it actually having been you is infinitesimal.
What scientists took decades to prove, marketing executives and politicians have known all along: fear sells. Gardner is forensic in his dissection of bogus claims in advertising and politics, just as he is lucid about the science explaining why they work. His chapters on the risk of being a victim of crime or terrorism provoke a peculiar mix of comfort and despair. It is heartening that the danger is slight; it's unsettling how skewed our political system and consumer culture are towards convincing us of the opposite.
The only antidote Gardner offers to that sort of thing is a redoubling of our mental efforts. The primitive part of our brains might be open to seduction by alarmist politicians, but, given enough time, the rational part can step in and stop us going all the way. Think more, Gardner exhorts, think harder.
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