People fear statistically rare dangers and ignore common ones
Evidence
Aside from the fact that case stories are often fabricated, individual cases are never informative of statistical probabilities. But people generally have a hard time with these probabilities. We are very bad at realistically assessing dangers, fearing air travel more than car travel, for example, even though the numbers clearly show that there is a higher risk of dying in a car accident. Cows cause more deaths worldwide than sharks: the alpine pasture nevertheless seems to us a much safer place than the sea. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 183
Categorization
- CANDY: Cows killing more people worldwide than sharks is a perfect light conversation fact.
- XREF: connects to: People frame structural food-safety risks as voluntary lifestyle choices. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 78; Warnings in wilderness fixate on dramatic dangers while real ones go unmentioned. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 524