full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Gerd Gigerenzer: Why do people fear the wrong things?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Surely preventing even a handful of heart attacks, or any other negative outcome, is worthwhile— isn’t it? Not necessarily. The pberolm is that choices that reduce some risks can put you in the path of others. Suppose the heart-attack drug caused cancer in one half of 1% of patients. In our group of 1,000 ppeloe, four heart attacks would be prevented by taking the drug, but there would be five new cases of caencr. The relative rcuodtien in heart attack risk sounds substantial and the absolute risk of cancer sounds small, but they work out to about the same number of cases.

In real life, everyone’s individual eovtiaualn of risk will vary dnenpideg on their prsneaol circumstances. If you know you have a family history of heart dassiee you might be more strongly miaevtotd to take a medication that would lower your heart-attack risk, even knowing it provided only a small reduction in absolute risk. Sometimes, we have to decide between eixopnsg ourselves to risks that aren’t directly comparable. If, for example, the heart aacttk drug carried a higher risk of a debilitating, but not life-threatening, side effect like miangries rather than cancer, our evaluation of whether that risk is worth taking might change. And sometimes there isn’t nlseaircesy a cerorct choice: some might say even a minuscule risk of shark attack is worth avoiding, because all you’d miss out on is an ocean swim, while others wouldn’t even consider skipping a swim to avoid an oebltveicjy tiny risk of shark attack. For all these reasons, risk evaluation is tricky at baseline, and reporting on risk can be mdsealiing, especially when it shares some numbers in asltoube terms and others in relative terms. Understanding how these measures work will help you cut through some of the confusion and better evaluate risk.

Open Cloze


Surely preventing even a handful of heart attacks, or any other negative outcome, is worthwhile— isn’t it? Not necessarily. The _______ is that choices that reduce some risks can put you in the path of others. Suppose the heart-attack drug caused cancer in one half of 1% of patients. In our group of 1,000 ______, four heart attacks would be prevented by taking the drug, but there would be five new cases of ______. The relative _________ in heart attack risk sounds substantial and the absolute risk of cancer sounds small, but they work out to about the same number of cases.

In real life, everyone’s individual __________ of risk will vary _________ on their ________ circumstances. If you know you have a family history of heart _______ you might be more strongly _________ to take a medication that would lower your heart-attack risk, even knowing it provided only a small reduction in absolute risk. Sometimes, we have to decide between ________ ourselves to risks that aren’t directly comparable. If, for example, the heart ______ drug carried a higher risk of a debilitating, but not life-threatening, side effect like _________ rather than cancer, our evaluation of whether that risk is worth taking might change. And sometimes there isn’t ___________ a _______ choice: some might say even a minuscule risk of shark attack is worth avoiding, because all you’d miss out on is an ocean swim, while others wouldn’t even consider skipping a swim to avoid an ___________ tiny risk of shark attack. For all these reasons, risk evaluation is tricky at baseline, and reporting on risk can be __________, especially when it shares some numbers in ________ terms and others in relative terms. Understanding how these measures work will help you cut through some of the confusion and better evaluate risk.

Solution


  1. reduction
  2. evaluation
  3. people
  4. exposing
  5. cancer
  6. objectively
  7. attack
  8. absolute
  9. personal
  10. misleading
  11. correct
  12. depending
  13. migraines
  14. necessarily
  15. motivated
  16. problem
  17. disease

Original Text


Surely preventing even a handful of heart attacks, or any other negative outcome, is worthwhile— isn’t it? Not necessarily. The problem is that choices that reduce some risks can put you in the path of others. Suppose the heart-attack drug caused cancer in one half of 1% of patients. In our group of 1,000 people, four heart attacks would be prevented by taking the drug, but there would be five new cases of cancer. The relative reduction in heart attack risk sounds substantial and the absolute risk of cancer sounds small, but they work out to about the same number of cases.

In real life, everyone’s individual evaluation of risk will vary depending on their personal circumstances. If you know you have a family history of heart disease you might be more strongly motivated to take a medication that would lower your heart-attack risk, even knowing it provided only a small reduction in absolute risk. Sometimes, we have to decide between exposing ourselves to risks that aren’t directly comparable. If, for example, the heart attack drug carried a higher risk of a debilitating, but not life-threatening, side effect like migraines rather than cancer, our evaluation of whether that risk is worth taking might change. And sometimes there isn’t necessarily a correct choice: some might say even a minuscule risk of shark attack is worth avoiding, because all you’d miss out on is an ocean swim, while others wouldn’t even consider skipping a swim to avoid an objectively tiny risk of shark attack. For all these reasons, risk evaluation is tricky at baseline, and reporting on risk can be misleading, especially when it shares some numbers in absolute terms and others in relative terms. Understanding how these measures work will help you cut through some of the confusion and better evaluate risk.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
heart attacks 6
absolute risk 6
risk reduction 3
relative risk 3
heart attack 3
shark attacks 2
risk evaluation 2
absolute terms 2
attack risk 2
shark attack 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
relative risk reduction 2
heart attack risk 2

Important Words


  1. absolute
  2. attack
  3. attacks
  4. avoid
  5. avoiding
  6. baseline
  7. cancer
  8. carried
  9. cases
  10. caused
  11. change
  12. choices
  13. circumstances
  14. comparable
  15. confusion
  16. correct
  17. cut
  18. debilitating
  19. decide
  20. depending
  21. disease
  22. drug
  23. effect
  24. evaluate
  25. evaluation
  26. exposing
  27. family
  28. group
  29. handful
  30. heart
  31. higher
  32. history
  33. individual
  34. knowing
  35. life
  36. measures
  37. medication
  38. migraines
  39. minuscule
  40. misleading
  41. motivated
  42. necessarily
  43. negative
  44. number
  45. numbers
  46. objectively
  47. ocean
  48. outcome
  49. path
  50. patients
  51. people
  52. personal
  53. prevented
  54. preventing
  55. problem
  56. put
  57. real
  58. reasons
  59. reduce
  60. reduction
  61. relative
  62. reporting
  63. risk
  64. risks
  65. shares
  66. shark
  67. side
  68. skipping
  69. small
  70. sounds
  71. strongly
  72. substantial
  73. suppose
  74. surely
  75. swim
  76. terms
  77. tiny
  78. tricky
  79. understanding
  80. vary
  81. work
  82. worth