korea mothball: What should we fear more: snakes or sedans?

Friday, October 26, 2012

What should we fear more: snakes or sedans?

Catherine de Lange, contributor

The world around us has evolved more quickly than our instincts, argues biologist Glenn Croston in The Real Story of Risk

WHEN I see a spider in my home I freeze with fear, despite knowing rationally that a house spider in the UK poses little threat. Yet at the same time I am perfectly happy to put my life in the hands of strangers by accepting a ride in a car or bus, travel to the other side of the world on my own, and drink more than the recommended limit of alcohol on a regular basis.

My approach to risk may seem unbalanced, but I am not alone. In fact, given that humans face constant risks in their day-to-day lives, we are incredibly good at misjudging them. Why is that?

In The Real Story of Risk, biologist Glenn Croston provides a plausible explanation. Taking the classical evolutionary approach, he argues that being able to calculate risk and take appropriate action was key to our survival as early humans. But today the risks we face have changed much more than we have. In other words, we simply haven't yet evolved to deal with them. Back then we faced threats from predators or seasonal food shortages; today it's cars, cancer and heart disease.

This disparity can explain all manner of common misjudgements, Croston says. Take the irrational fear of animals like snakes (or in my case, spiders). In a poll, 56 per cent of North American adults listed snakes as one of their greatest fears, despite most of these people never having to encounter them in their daily lives. Monkeys seem to share our fear, Croston points out. Wild monkeys will cower at the sight of snakes, and though lab-raised monkeys don't the first time they see one, if they see how their wild counterparts react, they will be scared the next time round. Fear of snakes seems to run deep: lab-raised monkeys cannot be taught fear of just anything in this way.

For more likely dangers in modern life, such as the threat of a heart attack, people are often relatively nonplussed. Despite compelling statistics, we find it hard to take risks seriously when they seem distant. Croston argues that this is because our ancestors needed to make snap decisions in an environment of immediate threats; they didn't need to play the long game as we do today.

From the credit crunch to climate-change denial, our fear of flying to our inability to understand statistics, Croston tackles each subject with pace and an entertaining style. Even if some of his evidence feels a little spurious or forced, such as the assertion that ancient cave paintings may represent an attempt by early humans to regain control of their world, more often he uses fascinating stories and studies that firmly back up his points.

Armed with this knowledge of how we fail to deal with risks today, Croston goes on to suggest ways we can better assess risks, or, at times, simply accept our failures. After all, he concludes, to avoid risk altogether would mean missing out on some of the best parts of life - truly the greatest risk of all.