Review: Risk: The science and politics of fear by Dan Gardner

OF THE many decisions you have taken this week about your health, safety and general well-being, you probably think the vast majority were rational and well thought out. They almost certainly were not. As Dan Gardner shows in this compelling analysis of how we judge risk, most of our decision-making is governed by emotion. Occasionally this serves us well, but often it does not. In the year following the 9/11 attacks, a surge in road travel in the US led to 1595 extra deaths, six times the number killed on the doomed aircraft. By showing how to read statistics properly…