The Science of Fear
By Daniel Gardner
Published July 2009 (Paperback) Plume
The Science of Fear opens with a recollection of Nine Eleven, as well it should. There has been no other day of such intense fear known to our generation — not on American soil. There is an indelible connection between that brilliant blue Manhattan sky, the towers with one, then two planes splitting them with smoke and flames, and that traumatic place in your mind where you have stored this picture.
I had just walked into the gym, climbed atop the treadmill, and faced the panorama of televisions — each with that image. Then came another image. I was born in Manhattan, in the hospital where my grandmother was an RN in the ER for decades. I had lived with her as a 23-year old in her final year. This image that came to me — as real as the one on the TV’s — was of a rosy pink glow, a bed of angels hovering a few feet above the ground, wing to wing, covering the entire expanse of what would be called Ground Zero. My grandmother was among many nurses and doctors from the other side, present, to be there for the victims of 9-11. There was a sense of overwhelming Love, the most peaceful you could experience, and a message that this horrific act that terrified so many, would usher in a new era of kindness between Americans. And then it was gone, and all I saw was a stunned and quiet gym, transfixed by the televisions with those images of the blue sky, the white clouds, the red fire.
Daniel Gardner says in his book that in 1933 FDR uttered his famous words that all we have to fear is fear itself. And, Gardner juxtaposes that comment with George W. Bush’s reaction — to stoke fear. He says it was in the president’s political interest to do just the opposite of what FDR did. And, certainly he gave bin Laden a boost in popularity among his kind.
Gardner’s book is full of science. He gives his due regard to the nearly 3,000 victims of 9-11, but says that that put odds of being in a terrorist attack at one in 93,000. Compare that to the one in 48,548 annual risk a pedestrian has of being struck and killed by a car. He also says that right after the terrorist attack, 52% predicted there would be another in the next few years. But at five years after 9-11, Gardner says, there had been no other terrorist attack…and no one predicted that! Even so, a new Gallup poll showed that 50% believed it was likely there would be another attack.
It is fear, he says, and it’s all in our mind. Actually, there are two minds. Head. And, Gut, which is responsible for that unlikely fear. The book is packed with studies. Here’s a simple one. People tasting cooked beef that is 75% lean will give that beef a much higher rating than those who sample the beef described as 25% fat. Hello? It’s the same amount! This is an example of the Good-Bad Rule.
He says we are hard-wired to fear snakes. By natural selection, those ancestors of ours who survived were the ones who expressed a healthy fear of snakes and ran the hell away when they saw one. But even a picture of a snake makes many of us uneasy.
All those pervs out there — statistics say 50,000 lurk on the Internet, trying to seduce your kids. The stat was traced back to the FBI, but they say they didn’t put the figure out there. Gardner never did find the source for that number, which just keeps cycling around, putting fear in the hearts of parents. Also, statistically, Gardner says, the number of kids who are stolen away by pervs is far lower than the number of kids who will be overweight, get diabetes and other illnesses because they’re no longer running around outdoors. Gut.
On every page, more stats, more rules. I don’t know that Gardner can ever convince our Guts about the issues he pulls up — silicone breasts, toxic chemicals, cancer, murders — but it is a most enlightening book. And he points out that we’re all doing a lot better than at any other time in history.
Winston Churchill in 1958 said, “The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.”
So don’t worry!
