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    The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Should not- and Put Ourselves in Great Danger
    The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Should not- and Put Ourselves in Great Danger
    The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Should not- and Put Ourselves in Great Danger
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Should not- and Put Ourselves in Great Danger

    Written by Daniel Gardner

    Narrated by Scott Peterson

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From terror attacks to the War on Terror, bursting real estate bubbles to crystal meth epidemics, sexual predators to poisonous toys from China, our list of fears seems to be exploding. And yet, we are the safest and healthiest humans in history. Irrational fear is running amok, and often with tragic results. In the months after 9/11, when people decided to drive instead of fly-believing they wee avoiding risk-road deaths rose by 1,595. Those lives were lost to fear.

    The Science of Fear is a disarmingly cheerful roundtrip shuttle to the new brain science, dissecting the fears that misguide and manipulate us every day.

    As award-winning journalist Daniel Gardner demonstrates, irrational fear springs from how humans miscalculate risks. Our hunter-gatherer brains evolved during the old Stone Age and struggle to make sense of a world utterly unlike the one that made them. Numbers, for instance, confuse us. Our “gut” tells us that even if there aren't “fifty thousand predators…on the Internet prowling for children,” as a recent U.S. Attorney General claimed, then there must be an awful lot. And even if our “head” discovers that the number is baseless and no one actually knows the truth-there could be one hundred thousand or five-we are still more fearful simply because we heard the big number. And it is not only politicians and the media that traffic in fearmongering. Corporations fatten their bottom lines with fear. Interest groups expand their influence with fear. Officials boost their budgets with fear. With more information, warnings and scary stories coming at us every day from every direction, we are more prone than ever to needlessly worry.

    Real-world examples, interviews with experts, and fast-paced, lean storytelling make The Science of Fear an entertaining and enlightening tour. Ultimately, by revealing the psychology behind the many ways our “gut” reactions lead us astray and allow others to manipulate us. The Science of Fear will make you brave.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAscent Audio
    Release dateJul 20, 2009
    ISBN9781596594326
    The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Should not- and Put Ourselves in Great Danger

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    Reviews for The Science of Fear

    4/5

    92 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Don't trust the media
    • 3/5
      Very interesting breakdown of how we respond to risks but disappointed the author was unable to universally apply the rules for all examples, highlighting his own biases.
    • 3/5
      Politicians, marketers, activists, non-governmental organizations, corporations, and advertisers of all types follow a simple formula: scare people, then offer to alleviate their fears. How do we separate the imaginary threats from the real ones? How do we find the true story? This book offers great insight into how we actually make decisions...and how our methods of decision-making get us into trouble.
    • 5/5
      A great perspective on the marketing of fear for profit that run in cycles of repetition through decades. The skillful interpretation of stats to fit narrative is analyzed and compared in this book. The dangers of fear are far more detrimental than the fear itself, is proven in this book. My skepticism of alarmists has increased and my doubts about them will help me see through their deceptions and/or naivety.
    • 3/5
      The intro and 1/2 the first chapter are about American social events that can make people fearful. I think this book is good for those wanting a broad view of fear, and fear-mongering of the USA. I'm looking for things more of a personal nature, not based on USA events or people causing other people to be fearful.
    • 4/5
      An interesting book that uses statistics to show how the things commonly feared in society are out of proportion with how often they actually happen.
    • 4/5
      This is quite a good book, what I gained most of all from reading it was the recalibration of what I should be fearful of and what I shouldn't be (What it says on the tin).
    • 3/5
      An interesting conversation that was well researched, but it was not as readable as Freakonomics (a little heavy on the statistics, perhaps?); therefore, it took me a while to move through it.
    • 4/5
      This is a good book, but needed tighter editing. Well written in general, but chapters were long and after a while tended to be repetitive and drag a bit. Good ideas though, and I'm glad I read it.
    • 4/5
      Fresh description of how our unconscious rates fear and worry, and how little control our conscious and rational mind has over this. The first chapters describe how this fear setting is reached, and the later chapters cover how this results in a bad estimate of danger from various modern problems (cancer, terrorism, pornography, etc.).