Risk

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

Risk: the science and politics of fear. By dan Gardner I've recommended, and reviewed, it here before. Basically it is a pop-science look at how humans react and view fear. Brilliant read with lots of good referecing to scientific papers etc. It was almost as revelatory to me as the selfish gene.

Agreed. This is an excellent book: http://www.amazon.com/Risk-Science-Politics-Dan-Gardner/dp/1... on the subject (I've recommended it a few times before)

Risk, the science of politics and fear by Dan Gardner (absolutely fantastic book, I already mentioned it on here earlier in the year). The Game (again). I read this regularly to remind me of a few things - it's the book that originally got me fascinated in human interaction. Nemesis (Richard Mullers theory) after a recommendation on HN. A couple of Obama's books (seemed logical to read up on him)- dreams of my Father I especially liked. Snowball (though still chugging through that). In Search of Schrodinger's Cat - a book all about the evolution of quantum theory (and one that gives me my favourite quote of the year: In 1905 Einstein actually published 5 times. The fifth being his PHD dissertation; yes those three individually genius works, which shook the very foundations of physics, were published my a man called Mr Einstein. Despite th…

Amazon Link (in case ppl struggle to find it) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Risk-Science-Politics-Dan-Gardner/dp...

Tell HN: Risk, Dan Gardner Hey Guys, I just finished reading Risk (The Science of Politics and Fear) by Dan Gardner and figured I should recommend it as a great read. I wouldn't normally recommend a book here but I suspect it is the kind of book a lot of people would dismiss as not-relevant to the hacker sort of mentality (I thought the same). Basically it sums up the Human reaction to perceived risk. One way to describe the whole thing is how many people, after seeing a coin land heads up 5 times in a row will bet it has a higher chance of landing heads up again next time - regardless of the random aspect. The most interesting thing I found in the book though was when he presented common "risk puzzles" where our gut causes a knee-jerk answer to a posed question. Several times I thought "that's silly, I'd never fall for that" only to read…