Scares - Taking science out of proportion 3

[Unotec]

Just finished "Scared to Death" and I had quite an experience.
Needless to say that I will not see all the alarms and warnings in TV, radio, etc... under the same light I used to any more.
Short from verifying all the quotes, links and references, I think what is explained and detailed makes sense; to me at least.
The authors show a very sensible approach on how genuine health/environmental concerns are escalated and taken out of proportion to become a scare.
It has to be taken with a grain of salt though; otherwise your liver will explode.
It presents how we, the public and most affected by these scares, are nothing more than spectators. How policy has been made based on flawed science and how things taken out of context and proportion lead to these policies.
In my personal case, I know I am a little biased and see things in a different light than most people around me where I am at.
Even before I immigrated to a "1st world country" in North America I had some perceptions that are the same that the book presents (might be the 'I lie they verify' case).
I might be chewed on for this, but here they are:
• People need to find something to complain about since most of them (us now for me) have the basic needs already met and secured (and a little more if you get picky). When the daily struggle is to make ends meet and your worry is you own welfare and that of your loved ones, it is pretty hard to start worrying about something you do not really understand. If you have lived all your life in a 1st world country, you might have no clue what really is opening your front door (assuming you are upper middle class and have a roof over your head), seeing your children and having no clue whether you will be able to provide what they need next month (careful, these are the BASIC NEEDS, not the wii that all their friends have and not them). Needless to say that people less fortunate than you will not even have exposure to these scares.
• Bad news sell, period. If it is the press, they will see their numbers soar. If it is a political group, they can gain adepts. If it is an environmental group, well... they also need to eat, cannot afford to loose their source of income.
• Just as with a sex video of Britney with Pamela Anderson making headlines and grasping everybody's attention span (in spite of the fact that this will not affect their lives in the least bit), morbidity will grab people's attention. Bad news, scares, etc... give a legal and socially acceptable morbidity for small talk and more.
• There is some unconscious need (I guess) to feel threatened, especially when the concept is so vague or complex that the normal Joe (or Jane... no chauvinism here) cannot fully grasp. The threat has to seem remote but with a sense of closeness. Something along the lines that it is happening all around you but cannot conceive it happening to you (yeah, hard to grasp what I am trying to explain here, but it is the best I could do).
• People's minds are very relaxed, and as a group, can be easily manipulated.
• There is no conceivable way, in our democratic worlds, to overrule what politicians and power groups do. No matter what the theory of democracy says.

The one I have not seen but, I think, is another factor here (and could also explain the stock market reactions)
• The speed in which news can reach us and information can travel leads to overreaction. The INTERNET is like a double edged sword, but the point is stabbing.
I think technology has advanced much faster than people's education has. There is too much information and not every person with access to it can understand causes and consequences. It is unreal how an event in one side of the world can have such strong consequences on the opposite side (assuming both happened in developed countries).

There are more far more personal and I am pretty sure easily debatable.
• People have short, very short, memories. At least when applied to the collective memories.
• Most scientists are shy. They are not the media type and will not jump up and fight. And the few that have, well, have been labeled. The typical scientist will avoid confrontation with the publicity if he can help it. He can fight data; she can fight the cosmos, but will NOT fight public exposure.
• People are very willing to hear/learn about everything except what is really worth learning.

We are engineers AND scientists and we are also being affected by policy based on flawed conclusions. What are the chances of reviving the scientific approach?


<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[SomptingGuy]

I have the book. Big bugger it is!!

It'll have to wait for me to finish the current vomit novel though (some Irvine Welsh nasty).

- Steve

 

[DonPhillips]

'Spin.' That is the main reason I do not like to watch news in TV. Too much spin and drama injected by the person reading the information.

I saw a news clip from a Cleveland televiosn news program that was repprting on Ohio's reversion to the 2005 NEC when the homebuilders were complaining to the governor about increased costs. A friend of mine, a building official and electrical inspector, was pointing to a residential panel with arc-faults and saying what the added costs are for complying with the 2008 NEC. The 'reporter' was hyping up how unsafe the new houses will, how little the extra cost, and the sound bite from the governor said something like there was no discussion about safety concerns otherwise he may have decided differently. I am pro-2008 NEC but I felt the news piece was so slanted to my way of thinking, I just did not see it as news and was very biased.

So I tell my kids - believe nothing that you hear and half of what you read.


Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[moltenmetal]

unotec: awesome thread- a star to you for staring it! Got to pick up the book!

No question that people are idiots generally in relation to risk. But it's reasonable that a person's attitude toward risk depends greatly on whether the risk is voluntarily assumed or is imposed on them by the actions of others. People get into their cars daily without a 2nd thought to the fact that this is the riskiest thing they do in their lives- but they're very concerned about whether or not the additives in the food they eat will give them cancer.

That the average life expectancy has increased dramatically over the past fifty years is evidence that the epidemiology supports the notion that our lives get safer every day. Why is it then that we feel less and less safe? There's worry that life expectancies may start to drop in future, but that too will probably prove to be merely a worry.

The fact is, there are folks who make a living by manipulating people's fears. Journalists and politicians are amongst them. That's something you should never personally forget, and something that you should teach your kids. Be skeptical- but there's a difference amongst skepticism, cynicism and reactionary disbelief.

It's also essential that people realize that the "do nothing" option also comes with risk. Take PCBs: people don't know what they are, but know enough to be scared of them. The neighbours band together to protest against any means used to destroy them on-site so they don't have to be transported to a disposal facility. Then the facility they're stored in catches fire by accident, exposing them to probably 10,000 times the amount they'd have been exposed to if 1950s incineration technology had been used to dispose of them in the first place. Want the example? Google St. Basile le Grand- a place in Quebec where this happened.

 

[josephv]

There is another good book on the subject called "The Culture of Fear" hear is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Afraid-Things/dp/0465014909

If I recall correctly it says fear is used by corporations and politicians to gain wealth and power. Examples are the acne cream commercials used to scare teens ("you will not be popular unless you buy our lotion"). And of course there are the weapons of mass deception.

 

[spongebob007]

I have absoultely zero respect for the "legitimate" news media. It's not just the speed at which information travels these days, but the absolute oversaturation of this information, 24hr news channels have to do something to justify their existence. I'm certainly not trying to downplay the tragedy of events like the JFK Jr plane crash, Natalie Holloway, or Jon Benet Ramesey, but do we really need to hear about these stories nationwide, 24hrs a day, for months on end?

 

[evelrod]

I think technology has advanced much faster than people's education has. There is too much information and not every person with access to it can understand causes and consequences.

I am pleased to know that I am not the only person that feels this a root problem with society.
Unfortunately, the gap is widening!

Rod

 

[KENAT]

I've resisted so far but...

You had to read a book to realize some of that?

I realized this at about 17 when we studied radiation and got to play with various sources and find out the risks associated with them, how to mitigate these etc. Compared to the public phobia of nuclear power it bore no relation.





KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[Unotec]

Well, yes, I had to read a book because most of the scares in the book I never even heard of when I was younger. Not until the book in most cases (my elementary school had asbestos roofs, my parents always smoked around us, never used helmets for biking/skateboarding in city streets, I was bullied and a bully, smoked a bit of pot in high school... this might explain some things in my life, now that I think of it.... well)
Unfortunately I really do not have time to dig into every alarm I hear about. The book presents a nice detail on how things started, progressed and ended, if they did.
Yes, the book brought up to light things that I thought it was "just me thinking differently" and made me put some things into a different perspective. Some of us need that kind of information every now and then.
Personally I am not, apparently, as analytical as you were at 17, but I played with many things that are now bad for you but back then were ok (some still are back home).
The book also shows how the society has been manipulated, over time, to now buy into the scares. This I found very interesting.
The worst part... back home they are going head first into the same things... just a little behind, but catching up fast!


<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[HgTX]

There are some things that were fine "back then" that ought not to be fine now. Drunk driving, filling everyone's indoor space with cigarette smoke, no seat belts. I loved riding on the back "shelf" of our car when I was small, and yet I don't wish those nasty seat belt laws would go away.

There are some things that were fine "back then" that should still be fine now, and yet aren't. Trick-or-treating has almost died out because people are afraid for the safety of their children, even though last I checked there was not a single documented case of stranger-tainted Halloween candy collected during trick-or-treating.

Most "scares" are somewhere between those two. Not all panics are justified (e.g., the cancer-causing mechanism in saccharine turned out to be rat-specific), but on the other hand just because the public at large is scared of something doesn't mean it isn't legitimately scary.

I don't know how to discuss the lack of ability to distinguish between cases where alarm is or is not called for without going on a rant about anti-intellectualism in U.S. society, so I won't.

It's not just about science, though, as josephv points out. What will happen if you vote for Candidate X or if you don't use the right acne cream doesn't have much to do with science but still has everything to do with being able to evaluate situations on one's own. Or knowing where to turn for reliable information if one doesn't have the requisite training (for example, I'm completely unqualified to judge whether panic is called for in the current financial crisis).

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[evelrod]

HG, I'm kinda in the midst of this "crisis" being retired and all. I could potentially loose a great deal, as could we all, but I'm not panicking. This, like other crises will pass and in a couple years it will be all but forgotten and replaced by some other crisis. It just seems to have always been that way, at least from my perspective.

Rod

 

[Unotec]

HG, one of the points here is not to allow things to be blown out of proportion. Most scares start with legitimate concerns, and must be addressed, but not turn them into full blown scares where the consequences are worse than the threat. Asbestos IS bad, just not all types of asbestos. Filling up indoors with smoke should also be discouraged(I am a smoker) but it is more due to the stink than any health effects, in bars the option should have been given for smoke free or not. etc...
And about "back then", I still run with scissors, but I'm holding the pointy edge inside my fist ;-)

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[JAE]

Nice thread.

And I appreciate the calm, learned answers too. Good job all.

My take is pretty in line with the above:

[red]The word "crisis" is waaaay overused and mis-used these days.[/red]

 

[KENAT]

I suppose I/we should bear in mind that supposedly engineers tend to be more analytical than the average.

Supposedly for this reason a lot of advertising doesn't work as well on engineers, also a lot of the time engineers supposedly wont get picked for jury duty - the lawyers are concerned we'll actually look at the facts rather than run on the drama & emotion etc.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[carnage1]

Ill have to remember to put that im an engineer if i get called for jury duty, maybe I can get out of it

Luck is a difficult thing to verify and therefore should be tested often. - Me

 

[KENAT]

I emphasize the 'supposedly' and offer no guarantees.;-)

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[jmw]

I wish I could find the article again, (it was by Isaac Asimov) in which the blame for this (the fear and blaming of science for the worlds ills) with Mary Woolstonecroft Godwin.

Apparently she and Percy Byshe Shelley, Lord Byron et al were assembled round the fire in their Swiss villa by the lake discussing the latest findings of science.
That "new scence" was the work of Volta and Galvani (who made frogs legs twitch when he applied electricity to them).

The dear little woman, there with all these literary luminaries, challenged, she went away and wrote the book that made her more well known than they; "Frankenstein".

The Frankenstein complex has been with us ever since.
It has become axiomatic that science is bad for us.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[Unotec]

I have been thinking a little on how these scares came to be and the role engineers and other scientists have NOT played.
In my case, when I caught the beginnings of some of the scares, I saw the basis for their science to be so flawed or unrealistic that my mind quickly dismissed the issue.
It just did not make sense and I thought (poor naive me) that they would be disregarded just because of how unrealistic they were. But lo and behold, they exploded!!!! I guess I tend to give common sense waay too much credit. (I know... common sense is not that common, but come on!! Just a little in some cases?)
So perhaps, most of the scientific community could not concieve that the scares coulr hold any water and is why it was so slow to react (and too late in most cases)

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[moltenmetal]

We scientists and engineers bought some of that Frankenstein complex for ourselves through past actions. Remember "better living through chemistry"? People were definitely led astray by people who were selling them a bill of goods. Unfortunately they've now swung too far in the opposite direction, distrusting anyone who claims to be an authority. For some reason, this incredulity doesn't extend to those who are false prophets of doom, nor to those who want to sell them the technological "magic bullets" to make the bogeymen go away. Snake oil salesmen are as popular as they ever were.

 

[MechEng2005]

I had an engineering professor that served as a juror. The case involved a car crash. She told us she was specifically forbidden from using her "specialized knowledge" to influence other jurors. She could not explain to the other jurors that, while the vehicle damage looks horrible, cars are built to crumble and protect the occupants. So the other jurors could (presumably) look at the wreck of a car and assume the people in the car were probably pretty injured and distressed. However, it was the crumple zones that protect this from happening that were actually making things look worse to those without "specialized knowledge"...

-- MechEng2005