| PANICOLOGY: WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? | |
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 The recent hysteria over the 'swine flu pandemic', as the mainstream media were calling the latest new flu outbreak when the number of those infected was still in the hundreds and the dead a mere few dozen, shows just how easy it is to get into a panic that may or may not be worth the emotional energy and cost of getting all worked up over some or other 'threat'. The authors, both statisticians, have looked at a range of potential 'threats', from killer birds and alien abductors, to rising sea levels and range of more mundane potential 'problems', such as the drop in birth rates in developed nations, the nuclear family's breakdown, divorce rates, increased obesity and the bloom in elderly numbers, to 'death by phone', issues in the workplace, the global 'war on terror', crime, climate change, 'Frankenstein foods', resource depletion and a bunch of other things you may never have thought of, worried about or even heard of. They approach their subject matter with a certain amount of self-deprecation, careful to quote British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's famous line: 'There are lies, damned lies - and statistics.' They are also mostly sceptical, offering a helpful toolkit for separating the usual media-driven nonsense from that which is worth thinking about, listing the ups and downs of a range of types of information and their source, from vested interests to 'weasel words', surveys, figures, percentages and actual numbers, anecdotes and statistics, graphs and charts, timeframes, defeatism (why am I being told something about which I can apparently do nothing - is it just to induce fear?), 'scare snobbery', scenarios, getting the big picture and maintaining a sense of proportion while accentuating the positive. They conclude by referring back to a poster widely used in the UK during World War II, which is as pertinent today as it was then: 'Keep Calm And Carry On.' Perhaps someone should alert the media. Amusing, interesting and useful, all at once - but be careful about which parts of this book you allow yourself to believe. Oh, and each issue they address, from bird flu to alien bogeymen, has a three-icon rating system: a chicken, to represent the degree of panic appropriate for the issue; a pair of dice, for risk; and a fist, for personal empowerment - each of which is scored between 1 and 10. Have fun, do more, worry less.Simon Brsicoe & Hugh Aldersey-Williams Viking • ISBN 978 0 670 91702 0
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