The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Should not- and Put Ourselves in Great Danger

As award-winning journalist Daniel Gardner demonstrates, irrational fear springs from how humans miscalculate risks. Our hunter-gatherer brains evolved during the old Stone Age and struggle to make sense of a world utterly unlike the one that made them. Numbers, for instance, confuse us. Our “gut” tells us that even if there aren’t “fifty thousand predators…on the Internet prowling for children,” as a recent U.S. Attorney General claimed, then there must be an awful lot. Real-world examples, interviews with experts, and fast-paced, lean storytelling make The Science of Fear an entertaining and enlightening tour.