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

" This is a very insightful book that equips its readers to question more of what they watch on T.V., read in the paper, and view on the Web. A key quote: "Politicians, corporations, activists, and non-governmental organizations want votes, sales, donations, support, and memberships, and they know that making people worry about injury, disease, and death is often the most effective way of obtaining their goals." "

" Scary that we are so easily manipulated! "

" Another voice of reason in an increasingly chaotic world, Gardner investigates why, at at time when humans are healthier and more secure than ever before, we're so terrified. Written in sober, clear language, this book may just help put things back into perspective. "

" Finally found time for personally reading and finished this great book. It is a mixture of Freakonomics and Denialism/Superstition in the age of reason. It is a story of our two brains (conscious and unconscious/"gut" and "head"). This is well written, informative and fun. The book is a great compliment to different but similar books such as Charles Pierce's "Idiot America" and Shankar Vedantam's "The Hidden Brain." A nice triology these three books are but Gardner's "The Science of Fear" is the best of the three. "

" As someone who suffers from anxiety and fear problems that can be pretty debilitating at times, it was looking forward to reading this book to see if there were any ideas that could help me recognize and alleviate my fears. Gardner focuses on the psychological aspects of fear, quoting at lengths from researchers and their experiments. While he does bury the reader at times in numbers and studies, he narrows his thesis down to humans having split personalities: the head, thoughtful and rational, and the gut, impulsive and reckless. In this sense, it is the flipside to Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink. In that book, the gut was responsible for good decisions, in this book the gut the gut takes all information at face value and ratchets up the fear. Gardner is successful with presenting his ideas, but the scope is somewhat narrow, as he focuses on the psychological and it would have been interesting if he could have included some neurological research about how gut and head co-exist and conflict within the brain. "

" Interesting, but way too verbose. "

" Many Americans were horrified by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and they stopped flying. Because of this, an additional 1,500 died in auto accidents the following year; none died in plane crashes. Most Americans know flying is safer than driving. I've never flown! "

" (Audio) So far, this book has been good at highlighting how we are bombarded by strategies that play on and create fear. Marketing, media, and politics are excellent places to look for good examples of these strategies. "

" Simplistic, disappointing. Not as good as Blink. Tended to beat points to death with extremely simple explanation. "

" A fascinating exploration of our psychological pit falls, and statistical misunderstanding of the world and how our fear does more bad than good. "

" A very informitive work. Opened my eyes alot. I really enjoyed reading it! "

" An eye-openimg look at the psychology of risk and risk perception and how this can and is often manipulated by those in the media and politics. This book has made me think more carefully every time I see one of those health scare newspaper articles or anews report on the threat of terrorism. "

" Why we are afraid of the least likely things (plane crashes, serial killers) and not afraid of the likeliest (cancer, suicide). And what the media has to do with it, and how trying to override your Gut instincts by using your Head usually doesn't work. "

" I got about 50 pages into this but didn't finish it. There wasn't any new information in it and it was too dry and dull. "

" A very informitive work. Opened my eyes alot. I really enjoyed reading it! "

" This book was non-stop full of good information to use in the real world:) I noticed the author dared not to open up a can of worms AKA, religion. He just skipped out all together. Not sure why. Religion uses fear so much that it would only make sense to call out such in a book this good. "

" Very insightful. Worth taking a second read. "

" This is my kind of book - very interesting! "

" Amazing look at the way that we make decisions, the impact that fear and our primitive hind brain have on our lives. Very revealing, very, very interesting. Everyone should read this. "

" Gardner does wonders in explaining irrational fear, mostly fueled by media. Amazing arguments backed by some scary but relevant statistics. Great read. I definitely recommend it if, like me, you get nervous about the crazy things that happen in this world. "

" This book should be required reading for all Americans. I just wish the chapter on terrorism wasn't so close to the end. It's arguably the biggest topic of fear right now, and it would be a shame for casual readers to miss the author's analysis. "

" This was a really facinating book about how poorly humans evaluate risk, especially when innundated with information (like cable tv, Internet, etc). "

" I read about half way through. Fairly interesting books, full of statistics, but I have other books I am currently reading that are much more captivating. "