Download or read book How Risky Is It Really Why Our Fears Don t Always Match the Facts written by David Ropeik and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2010-03-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Clear, balanced, and lively." -- Steven Pinker, bestselling author of How the Mind Works ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE "RIGHT" RISKS? Do you worry more about radiation from nuclear power or from the sun? Are you more afraid of getting cancer than heart disease? Are you safer talking on your cell phone or using a hands-free device when you drive? Do you think global warming is a serious threat to your health? GET THE FACTS BEHIND YOUR FEARS—AND DISCOVER . . . HOW RISKY IS IT, REALLY? International risk expert David Ropeik takes an in-depth look at our perceptions of risk and explains the hidden factors that make us unnecessarily afraid of relatively small threats and not afraid enough of some really big ones. This read is a comprehensive, accessible, and entertaining mixture of what's been discovered about how and why we fear—too much or too little. It brings into focus the danger of The Perception Gap: when our fears don’t match the facts, and we make choices that create additional risks. This book will not decide for you what is really risky and what isn't. That's up to you. HOW RISKY IS IT, REALLY? will tell you how you make those decisions. Understanding how we perceive risk is the first step toward making wiser and healthier choices for ourselves as individuals and for society as a whole. TEST YOUR OWN "RISK RESPONSE" IN DOZENS OF SELF-QUIZZES!
Download or read book Risk A Very Short Introduction written by Baruch Fischhoff and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Risk is everywhere - from genetically modified crops, dams, and stem-cell therapy to heartbreak, online predators, inflation, and robbery. This Very Short Introduction examines what science has learned about how people deal with risks, what we can learn through decision theory, and how we can evaluate risk in our own lives.
Download or read book The Feeling of Risk written by Paul Slovic and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Feeling of Risk brings together the work of Paul Slovic, one of the world's leading analysts of risk, to describe the extension of risk perception research into the first decade of this new century. In this collection of important works, Paul Slovic explores the conception of 'risk as feelings' and examines the interaction of feeling and cognition in the perception of risk. He also examines the elements of knowledge, cognitive skill, and communication necessary for good decisions in the face of risk. The first section of the book looks at the difficulty of understanding risk without an emotional component, for example that disaster statistics lack emotion and thus fail to convey the true meaning of disasters and fail to motivate proper action to prevent them. The book also highlights other important perspectives on risk arising from cultural worldviews and concerns about specific hazards pertaining to blood transfusion, biotechnology, prescription drugs, smoking, terrorism, and nanotechnology. Following on from The Perception of Risk (2000), this book presents some of the most significant research on risk perception in recent years, providing essential lessons for all those involved in risk perception and communication.
Download or read book Risk Savvy written by Gerd Gigerenzer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new eye-opener on how we can make better decisions—by the author of Gut Feelings In this age of big data we often trust that expert analysis—whether it’s about next year’s stock market or a person’s risk of getting cancer—is accurate. But, as risk expert Gerd Gigerenzer reveals in his latest book, Risk Savvy, most of us, including doctors, lawyers, and financial advisors, often misunderstand statistics, leaving us misinformed and vulnerable to exploitation. Yet there’s hope. In Risk Savvy, Gigerenzer gives us an essential guide to the science of good decision making, showing how ordinary people can make better decisions for their money, their health, and their families. Here, Gigerenzer delivers the surprising conclusion that the best results often come from considering less information and listening to your gut.
Download or read book The Body Keeps the Score written by Bessel A. Van der Kolk and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.
Download or read book Risk written by David Ropeik and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2002 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Factfulness written by Hans Rosling and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.
Download or read book Behave written by Robert M. Sapolsky and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestseller • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year “It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” —David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I’ve read in years. I loved it." —Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d’horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky—a neuroscientist and primatologist—uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement—a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.
Download or read book The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2012 written by Dan Ariely and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Top-notch science writing covering everything from the 1,000 species in the human gut to efforts to reverse-evolve a chicken into a dinosaur.” —Kirkus Reviews With contributions from bestselling and award-winning writers including Jerome Groopman and Elizabeth Kolbert, this volume delves into such topics as the 2008 “Black Friday” stampede at a Long Island Walmart; an annual humans-vs.-AI competition; octopus intelligence; lab-grown meat; marauder ants; the brains of teenagers; and the Neanderthal genome. Lively and accessible, this is “a showcase for clean, plain-English science and nature writing and a treat for readers” (Kirkus Reviews). “This strong collection invites awe, begets wonder, and stimulates contemplation.” —Publishers Weekly “There is so much we don’t know, which leads us to make so many irrational decisions that we need scientists and science writers to share their inquiries and discoveries in welcoming and lucid prose. Stellar examples of just this sort of cogent and compelling writing sustains this invaluable and exciting series.” —Booklist Contributors include: Brendan Buhler · Virginia Hughes • Jerome Groopman • Carl Zimmer • Thomas Hayden • Michael Behar • Bijal P. Trivedi • Sy Montgomery • Mark W. Moffett • Deborah Blum • Elizabeth Kolbert • Michael Roberts • Thomas Goetz • Jason Daley • David Dobbs • David Eagleman • John Seabrook • David Kirby • Robert Kunzig • Michael Specter • Mark McClusky • Rivka Galchen • Joshua Davis • Brian Christian
Download or read book Fearing Together written by Harbin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-04-21 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fearing is a central part of how we relate to each other and the unpredictable world. Fearing badly is a key part of many of our moral failures and fearing better a central part of our moral repair. We might think that fearing is undesirable and should be avoided whenever possible, but, as Ami Harbin argues, avoiding fear causes some of our greatest threats. Fearing well is at the core of what it means to be responsible. By understanding fear as a relational practice, we can see that our relationships with other fearers shape what we fear, what fear feels like, how we identify and understand our fears, and how we cope with them. Bringing insights from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, political theory, and mindfulness research, Harbin guides readers in coming to grips with what kind of fearers we want to be and become and what we owe each other when facing what we cannot control. Grounded in real-life cases that will be of interest to many readers--policing, prisons, pandemic, vaccination, borders, migration, parenting, gender, sexuality, health care systems, and more--this text addresses the moral quandaries and complexities of the ethics of fearing together.
Download or read book Think Like a Monk written by Jay Shetty and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jay Shetty, social media superstar and host of the #1 podcast On Purpose, distills the timeless wisdom he learned as a monk into practical steps anyone can take every day to live a less anxious, more meaningful life. When you think like a monk, you’ll understand: -How to overcome negativity -How to stop overthinking -Why comparison kills love -How to use your fear -Why you can’t find happiness by looking for it -How to learn from everyone you meet -Why you are not your thoughts -How to find your purpose -Why kindness is crucial to success -And much more... Shetty grew up in a family where you could become one of three things—a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. His family was convinced he had chosen option three: instead of attending his college graduation ceremony, he headed to India to become a monk, to meditate every day for four to eight hours, and devote his life to helping others. After three years, one of his teachers told him that he would have more impact on the world if he left the monk’s path to share his experience and wisdom with others. Heavily in debt, and with no recognizable skills on his résumé, he moved back home in north London with his parents. Shetty reconnected with old school friends—many working for some of the world’s largest corporations—who were experiencing tremendous stress, pressure, and unhappiness, and they invited Shetty to coach them on well-being, purpose, and mindfulness. Since then, Shetty has become one of the world’s most popular influencers. In 2017, he was named in the Forbes magazine 30-under-30 for being a game-changer in the world of media. In 2018, he had the #1 video on Facebook with over 360 million views. His social media following totals over 38 million, he has produced over 400 viral videos which have amassed more than 8 billion views, and his podcast, On Purpose, is consistently ranked the world’s #1 Health and Wellness podcast. In this inspiring, empowering book, Shetty draws on his time as a monk to show us how we can clear the roadblocks to our potential and power. Combining ancient wisdom and his own rich experiences in the ashram, Think Like a Monk reveals how to overcome negative thoughts and habits, and access the calm and purpose that lie within all of us. He transforms abstract lessons into advice and exercises we can all apply to reduce stress, improve relationships, and give the gifts we find in ourselves to the world. Shetty proves that everyone can—and should—think like a monk.
Download or read book The Anxiety Cure for Kids written by Elizabeth DuPont Spencer and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The up-to-date, practical guide for helping your child deal with anxiety Fear, worry, stomach pains, self-doubt—these are classic symptoms of anxiety in children. Using kid-friendly concepts and real-life examples, this reassuring guide helps adults and children understand the powerful ways in which anxiety works and how to overcome its negative effects. This revised edition includes all-new chapters on food phobia; the relationship between anxiety and other illnesses and problems such as ADHD, depression, and autism; and anxiety in teens. The lessons in The Anxiety Cure for Kids have helped many children break free from anxiety. By making changes little by little, any child with anxiety can get well and stay well. • Provides up-to-date, practical guidance for helping both younger children and teenagers deal with anxiety issues • Shows how to recognize the symptoms of anxiety, evaluate a child's need for medication and/or therapy, assess the role of the family in anxiety disorders, and take concrete steps to find solutions • Explains how to communicate effectively with your child, help him or her confront fear, and boost your child's feelings of accomplishment and self-esteem • Addresses a range of anxiety disorders, such as food phobia and anxieties about terrorism, as well as the relationship between anxiety and other illnesses • Also includes advice that can be used by teachers, coaches, doctors, therapists, school nurses, and others who work with anxious kids
Download or read book Override written by Connell Cowan and published by Citadel. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we always seem to sabotage our best intentions? For anyone who’s experienced the power of habit and the difficulty of change, Override provides the science we need to take control of our own brains by identifying one of two personality types. Based on today’s breakthrough science into neurotransmitters, Dr. Connell Cowan, NYT best-selling author of Smart Women/Foolish Choices and Dr. David Kipper, co-host of ABC Radio’s nationally syndicated The Medical Show gives readers the tools to recognize their own chemical imbalances, and what to do about them. Think you already own your brain? Think again. Your brain owns you. It pushes you around and insists upon getting its way, not yours. Rather than having your best interests in mind, your brain has its own very specific agendas and strategies the purpose of which is singular—to make it feel good. It doesn’t care that its goals are often at stark variance with your intentions or what you know is healthy and constructive in your life. Your brain is selfish, demanding, and devious. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Override introduces a new two-pronged theory of personality: serotonin types and dopamine types. Based on today’s breakthrough science into neurotransmitters—the chemicals that transmit signals through our nervous system—Override show readers how to recognize their own chemical imbalances, and what to do about them. One of the key parts of developing these strategies is understanding the ways serotonin and dopamine are supposed to work, and which type you fall under. Equipped with this new information, the reader will learn to recognize and reshape their reflexive behavior and develop intentional self-control. With this book, nobody is doomed to remain trapped by their natural tendencies! Override details the struggles of people, both D- and S-Types, and show how together with them the authors found a path to change that can start this minute and last a lifetime. Complete with easy-to-use questionnaires, strategies, and exercises, this book offers micro and macro thinking on iconic human problems, backed up by the latest scientific research into why we are the way we are.
Download or read book A Bright Future written by Joshua S. Goldstein and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for Nuclear Now, the new Oliver Stone film, co-written by Joshua Goldstein As climate change quickly approaches a series of turning points that guarantee disastrous outcomes, a solution is hiding in plain sight. Several countries have already replaced fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources, and done so rapidly, in one to two decades. By following their methods, we could decarbonize the global economy by midcentury, replacing fossil fuels even while world energy use continues to rise. But so far we have lacked the courage to really try. In this clear-sighted and compelling book, Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist explain how clean energy quickly replaced fossil fuels in such places as Sweden, France, South Korea, and Ontario. Their people enjoyed prosperity and growing energy use in harmony with the natural environment. They didn't do this through personal sacrifice, nor through 100 percent renewables, but by using them in combination with an energy source the Swedes call käkraft, hundreds of times safer and cleaner than coal. Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, yet footnoted with extensive technical references, Goldstein and Qvist's book will provide a new touchstone in discussions of climate change. It could spark a shift in world energy policy that, in the words of Steven Pinker's foreword, literally saves the world.
Download or read book Naked Safety written by Andrew Sharman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Workplace safety has never been seen as sexy, clever or cool. Fraught with legislative hurdles, ambiguous policy and complex procedures, despite its alleged importance safety has lost its way. For many organisations safety is seen as burdensome and bureaucratic and has become little more than paperwork and performance charts: things done in fear of persecution – from the authorities, the media or the civil arena – rather than doing the right thing. To change the game and build real risk literacy, it’s vital to make things easier, to strip things back to basics and think again about how we work. This is Naked Safety. Encouraging the reader to step outside their comfort zone, this book demystifies workplace safety, challenging traditional views and catalysing critical thought and high-impact action. With narratives on the central pillars of workplace safety including risk management; legal frameworks; performance; governance; leadership and culture, as well as perspectives on key issues that affect safety – and business – more broadly, such as worker wellbeing; employee engagement; the impact of globalisation; corporate social responsibility; sustainability and the role of the safety practitioner, Naked Safety features over 100 actions to bring about positive, sustainable organisational change. This book is a useful, multi-purpose guide for professionals; an indispensable toolkit for practitioners, business leaders, and anyone with an interest in workplace risk and Occupational Safety and Health. Let’s get Naked!
Download or read book QFINANCE written by Bloomsbury Publishing and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 7101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: QFINANCE: The Ultimate Resource (5th edition) is the first-step reference for the finance professional or student of finance. Its coverage and author quality reflect a fine blend of practitioner and academic expertise, whilst providing the reader with a thorough education in the may facets of finance.
Download or read book Curing Cancerphobia written by David Ropeik and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2023-11-28 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our fear of cancer causes great harm to individual health and to society. The fear of cancer is understandable. But that fear is in some ways outdated, as it fails to account for the medical progress made against this family of diseases. In Curing Cancerphobia, David Ropeik reveals the fascinating historical and psychological roots of our fear of cancer and documents the dramatic health and financial harms caused when that fear exceeds the risk. Fear of cancer drives millions for whom screening is not recommended to screen for the disease anyway, producing tens of thousands of emotionally damaging false positives and costing the US health care system an estimated $9.2 billion a year. At the same time, fear of cancer also causes many people for whom screening is recommended to avoid it altogether. Modern screening technologies often identify cancers that do not spread or that grow so slowly they almost certainly will never cause harm in a person's lifetime. Yet many of these people, frightened by the word "cancer" in their diagnosis, understandably choose more aggressive and risky treatments than their clinical conditions require. These unnecessary treatments kill hundreds of people, cause severe side effects in thousands, and cost the health care system at least $5.2 billion a year. Additionally, consumers spend billions of dollars on vitamins and supplements, organic food, and other products that promise to reduce our risk of cancer but do not actually reduce it. And an excessive fear of cancer causes resistance to potentially beneficial technologies like nuclear power and fluoridation of tap water. After documenting these harms, Ropeik offers tools and suggestions to help reduce the negative impacts of cancerphobia. Based on extensive research including interviews with experts and cancer patients, Curing Cancerphobia confronts our emotional relationship with the disease we fear more than any other.
