David Ropeik
Big Think Contributor, "Risk, Reason & Reality"
David Ropeik is a science journalist and consultant. He formerly taught at Harvard University, wrote a science column for the Boston Globe, and was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. He is the author of Curing Cancerphobia.
California’s initiative process can be both a wonderfully democratic and perilously dumb way to make law. On no issue could that be more true than the proposed initiative to […]
As part of considering the costs and benefits of major regulations, the federal government assigns a dollar value to human life. This is not a real person, just an […]
Item:A study finds that between 1970 and 2009, melanoma skin cancer cases increased eight times in women aged 18-39, and four times in men, apparently from increasing use of tanning […]
The battle over Bisphenol A (BPA) rages on, and continues to teach lessons far beyond the particulars of the issue itself. Environmentalists argue that BPA (the supposedly dangerous chemical […]
Majorities around the world believe that the climate of the earth is changing, that human activity is contributing to those changes, that the changes are happening so fast they […]
Here’s some bad news for those of you who like to think you can think rationally about risk. You can’t. You know all those thoughtfully considered views you have […]
Want something else to worry about? Worry about worrying too much. The evidence is building that chronically elevated stress shrinks your brain! A study in press at the […]
When you read a news story about a threat or danger or hazard, what do you want to know? Most likely, you want to know if it’s a risk […]
A year ago a terrible earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power disaster in Japan gripped the world’s attention for weeks. The news is already full of stories about the anniversary […]
As I have written here before, many of us are more worried about some environmental risks than the evidence suggests we need to be – mercury, bisphenol a, nuclear […]
The same psychological risk perception factors that influence how scary things feel to you and me impact politicians in the same way.
In his groundbreaking 1995 book Descartes’ Error, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio describes Elliott, a patient who had no problem understanding information, but who nonetheless could not live a normal life. Elliott […]
This space recently offered some thoughts about “The Ethics of Climate Change Denial”. The basic case was that denial which arises out of the innate subconscious urge we all […]
Like its own self-sustaining chain reaction, the battle over nuclear power rages on. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has for the first time since 1978 approved construction of new nuclear reactors. […]
There were a lot of thoughtful comments on my observations last week about the ethics of denying that climate change is real. Many felt that I was arrogant, since […]
Here is a version of The Trolley Problem, a classic experiment in ethics. Let’s say you are next to some train tracks, and down the tracks and behind a […]
Here is a version of The Trolley Problem, a classic experiment in ethics. Let’s say you are next to some train tracks, and down the tracks and behind a […]
To little notice, an advisory commission charged with figuring out a permanent solution for America’s nuclear waste has issued a new approach for siting a waste repository that just […]
Take a moment, and remember, in as much detail as possible, a time in your life when you were REALLY SCARED! If you tried, you could probably summon […]
(The following piece was written Sunday evening. There is news since then about what might have led to the sinking, news that chillingly bears out the thoughts offered in the […]
There is a piece on The Atlantic that typifies the way the emotional characteristics of a risk can cloud our ability to think about that risk carefully. It also represents […]
The urge to predict is understandable. We forecast the future, and continue to do so even after repeated mistakes, because of the deep psychological need for a sense of control, to keep ourselves safe.
Stress. It is probably one of the biggest risks we face. The more worried you are that you might get sick, the more likely it is that you will, […]
Most Americans know that talking on the cell phone while they’re driving is dangerous. And two thirds of Americans say they do it anyway. So it’s not surprising that […]
There is no question that in many cases, we are cancer phobic, more afraid of the disease than the medical evidence says we need to be, and that fear alone can be bad for our health.
Many of the cognitive tools (heuristics and biases) that we use for all sorts of decision-making also influence our choices about risk.
A couple days ago I posted a piece, The Climate Change Winds May Be Shifting, about how the evidence linking climate change and extreme weather events is getting stronger, […]
Last week when the Egyptians voted in an open election for the first time in decades, having won the right to this inspirational exercise of democracy by standing up […]
That Herman Cain allegedly had a long term extramarital relationship, and deluded himself into believing he could keep that secret while running for President, raises once again that ever-puzzling […]
The latest round of international negotiations about climate change will prompt a lot of press coverage, mostly about the likelihood that, once again, the nations of the world will fail to agree on anything of substance.