this has been a grand experiment in
how to introduce a product to the
market in a new way,” Maynard says.
“Whether all the up-front e;ort has
gotten us to a place where we can
have a better conversation
remains to be seen.”
the populace have to be continually
worked on to break down stereotypes.
Anytime there’s a big shark event, you
take a couple steps backward, which
requires scientists and conservation-
ists to get the real word out.”
T
;;; ;;;;;, ;;;;;;; ;;; the
real word comes with its own
risks—like the risk of getting
the real word wrong. Misinformation is especially toxic
to risk perception because it
can reinforce generalized confirmation biases and erode public trust in
scienti;c data. As scientists studying
the societal impact of the Chernobyl
meltdown have learned, doubt is dif-;cult to undo. In ;;;;, ;; years after
reactor number ; at the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant was encased in
cement, the World Health Organization (;;;) and the International
Atomic Energy Agency released a
report compiled by a panel of ;;;
scientists on the long-term health
e;ects of the level ; nuclear disaster
and future risks for those exposed.
Among the ;;;,;;; recovery workers and local residents who received
a significant dose of radiation, the
;;; estimates that up to ;,;;; of
them, or ;.; percent, will develop a
fatal cancer related to Chernobyl.
For the ; million people living in less
contaminated areas of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, radiation from the
meltdown is expected to increase
cancer rates less than ; percent.
Even though the percentages are
low, the numbers are little comfort
for the people living in the shadow
of the reactor’s cement sarcophagus
who are literally worrying them-
selves sick. In the same report, the
;;; states that “the mental health
impact of Chernobyl is the largest
problem unleashed by the accident
to date,” pointing out that fear of con-
tamination and uncertainty about
the future has led to widespread anx-
iety, depression, hypochondria, alco-
holism, a sense of victimhood, and
a fatalistic outlook that is extreme
even by Russian standards. A recent
study in the journal Radiology con-
cludes that “the Chernobyl accident
showed that overestimating radia-
tion risks could be more detrimental
than underestimating them. Misin-
formation partially led to traumatic
evacuations of about ;;;,;;; indi-
viduals, an estimated ;,;;; suicides,
and between ;;;,;;; and ;;;,;;;
elective abortions.”
It is hard to fault the Chernobyl
survivors for worrying, especially
when it took ;; years for the scien-
ti;c community to get a grip on the
aftere;ects of the disaster, and even
those numbers are disputed. An
analysis commissioned by Green-
peace in response to the ;;; report
predicts that the Chernobyl disaster
will result in about ;;;,;;; cancers
and ;;,;;; fatal cases.
Total, any cause:
1 in 1
;;;; ;;; ;;;; ;; ;;;;;-
surably more difficult if the
media—in particular cable
news—ever decide to make
nanotech their fear du jour. In
the summer of ;;;;, if you switched
on the television or picked up a newsmagazine, you might think the ocean’s
top predators had banded together to
take on humanity. After ;-year-old
Jessie Arbogast’s arm was severed by a
seven-foot bull shark on Fourth of July
weekend while the child was playing
in the surf of Santa Rosa Island, near
Pensacola, Florida, cable news put all
its muscle behind the story. Ten days
later, a surfer was bitten just six miles
from the beach where Jessie had been
mauled. ;en a lifeguard in New York
claimed he had been attacked. ;ere
was almost round-the-clock coverage of the “Summer of the Shark,”
as it came to be known. By August,
according to an analysis by historian
April Eisman of Iowa State University,
it was the third-most-covered story
of the summer until the September ;;
attacks knocked sharks o; the cable
news channels.
All that media created a sort of feedback loop. Because people were seeing so many sharks on television and
reading about them, the “availability”
heuristic was screaming at them that
sharks were an imminent threat.
“Certainly anytime we have a situation like that where there’s such overwhelming media attention, it’s going
to leave a memory in the population,”
says George Burgess, curator of the
International Shark Attack File at the
Florida Museum of Natural History,
who ;elded ;; to ;; media calls a day
that summer. “Perception problems
have always been there with sharks,
and there’s a continued media interest in vilifying them. It makes a situation where the risk perceptions of
Heart disease:
1 in 6
Cancer:
1 in 7
;; ;; ;;;;;;;; ;;;; ;;; ;;;;;;;;;
can ever paper over our gut reactions
to risk. But a fuller understanding of
the science is beginning to percolate
into society. Earlier this year, David
Ropeik and others hosted a conference on risk in Washington, D.C.,
bringing together scientists, policy
makers, and others to discuss how
risk perception and communication
impact society. “Risk perception is
not emotion and reason, or facts and
feelings. It’s both, inescapably, down
at the very wiring of our brain,” says
Ropeik. “We can’t undo this. What
I heard at that meeting was people
beginning to accept this and to realize that society needs to think more
;;;;;;;;; ;; ;;;; ;;
