DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: _JS on October 04, 2007, 12:47:42 PM
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In Judging Risk, Our Fears Are Often Misplaced
By Shankar Vedantam
Monday, September 24, 2007
(http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2007/09/23/PH2007092300921.jpg)
A woman eyes a D.C. transit officer patrolling with a submachine gun after the 2005 terrorist attacks in London. (Chip Somodevilla - Getty Images)
Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, psychologist Jennifer Lerner conducted a national field experiment: She asked a random sampling of Americans how likely it was that they would be the victim of a terrorist attack in the next 12 months.
Respondents said there was a 1-in-5 chance they would personally be hurt within the next year, and a nearly 1-in-2 chance that the average American would be hurt. That kind of carnage, Lerner estimated, would not have occurred even if there had been a Sept.11-scale attack every day of the year.
The purpose of Lerner's experiment was not to mock people's fears -- in the aftermath of the attacks, no one knew what to expect. If 19 hijackers armed with nothing more than box cutters could demolish the World Trade Center, damage the Pentagon, crash four airliners and kill nearly 3,000 people, who knew what else was coming?
What the experiment did highlight, however, was the role of psychological processes in biasing people's judgment when it comes to assessing risk. The study by Lerner, who is now at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and other research shows that when people are asked to make judgments about risk in uncertain situations, they fall back on mental rules of thumb that regularly turn out to be preposterously wrong.
Lerner found that anger and fear systematically bias people's risk estimates in opposite directions. Anger causes people to underestimate risks, which may be why drivers in the grip of road rage confidently attempt perilous maneuvers that place themselves and others in danger. By contrast, people who are afraid overestimate risks.
Research going back three decades shows that people are more likely to worry about unusual risks and less likely to worry about everyday dangers. Carnegie Mellon psychologist Baruch Fischhoff once found that people overestimate the number of deaths caused by accidents, tornadoes, floods, cancer, fires, and homicides and underestimate the risks of diabetes, stroke, asthma and emphysema.
To put it another way, people worry a lot more than they should about the kind of scenarios depicted in Hollywood thrillers and the nightly news, and worry a lot less than they should about "mundane" risks that do not make for gripping entertainment but kill a lot more Americans every year.
Malevolence or negligence on the part of others also seems to trigger our warning systems much more easily than the risks we pose to ourselves by smoking or leading sedentary lives. The number of Americans who have committed suicide in the last six years is more than 50 times the number of Americans killed by al-Qaeda operatives on Sept 11, 2001.
"The risk for any given person for suicide, particularly for middle-aged older white males, is dramatically higher than the risk of being mugged or being in a terrorist attack," said Lerner.
While psychology is not much use in predicting the future when it comes to terrorism, what it can do is highlight errors in thinking. Psychologist David Mandel asked people after the Sept. 11 attacks what they thought the risk of a major terrorist attack would be in the next two months. He then asked his volunteers to estimate the risk of an attack specifically by al-Qaeda and the risk of an attack by a completely separate group. Mandel found that when he totaled a person's responses about the likelihood of each of the subdivided possibilities, their sum was greater than the person's guess about the overall likelihood of a terrorist attack.
"By splitting the event into a terrorist attack by al-Qaeda or non-al-Qaeda operatives, that inflates the estimate the event will happen," said Mandel, who works for Defense Research and Development Canada, a government agency.
Subdividing a risk -- worrying not just about terrorism, in other words, but about nuclear terrorism and biological terrorism and hijacked planes and so on -- inflates the overall risk of terrorism in our minds. Mandel's point is not that subdividing risks leads to bad judgments, but rather that asking ourselves the same question in different ways often produces different answers. Mandel's insight is that it is not easy to know whether people's estimates of risk are accurate, since judgments about terrorism involve uncertainty, but that it is possible to discover whether their predictions of risk are coherent. A lack of coherence is one sign that accuracy might be in doubt as well.
Mandel has also found that when he asks people what the odds are of a terrorist attack happening and the odds of an attack not happening, their answers regularly fail to add up to 100 percent. And Lerner's field experiment confirmed another puzzling thing: People invariably see themselves as being at lower risk than the average person -- they guessed they had a 1-in-5 chance of being hurt but that others had a 1-in-2 chance of being hurt. Obviously, these statistics cannot be true for everyone.
"Not only is human judgment biased, but the problem is we are often unaware of the biases that affect our judgment," Mandel said. "When we are told people are biased in a particular manner we think, 'Perhaps they are, but not me.' "
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092300915.html)
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When emotion trumps reason
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So you agree with the article, Sirs?
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Yes.
I'm about as staunch a supporter of our efforts to take on Islamofascist terrorists as anyone, yet if someone had polled me asking the same questions, of course I wouldn't have believed I was going to be targeted by a terrorist attack, or even hurt. I WOULD have expected and indicated a belief in another attack on the U.S., which I'm stunned hasn't happened, but when people start thinking they're personally in the crosshairs of Usama, that's emotion trumping all reason
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http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/50.html
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Talk about emotion trumping reason.
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Talk about emotion trumping reason.
So, no comment?
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http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
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So, no comment?
Actually the "talk about emotion trumping reason" statement was my comment. The "controlled demolition" theory has been debunked quite thoroughly, yet it is persistently presented as "proof" of some sort of conspiracy theory. As I said, emotion trumping reason.
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So, no comment?
Actually the "talk about emotion trumping reason" statement was my comment. The "controlled demolition" theory has been debunked quite thoroughly, yet it is persistently presented as "proof" of some sort of conspiracy theory. As I said, emotion trumping reason.
Say what you will about the two towers, I can understand anyone not wanting to believe that our own government would kill so many Americans (though it is naive and pretty god damned stupid a position) but there is absolutely no denying that Building 7 was "pulled". The owner of the buildings (who upped his insurance in case WTC was destroyed by "terrorism") is on film saying they made the decision to "pull" that building. Anyone who watches that building fall can't, with any amount of realism, deny it was a controlled demolition.
Red Cross workers say they heard the countdown over a radio and ran for their lives to avoid being killed in the demolition.
The two towers were also destroyed in a controlled demolition using a form of thermite. There's just no way a fire burned hot enough to make all the steel in that building give way. Sorry, just didn't happen that way. Cry all you want, those buildings were destroyed more by controlled demolition than by two remotecontrolled planes full of jet fuel.
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:D
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3E-26oVIIs
Larry Silverstein states plainly they decided to "pull" Building 7.
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Say what you will about the two towers, I can understand anyone not wanting to believe that our own government would kill so many Americans (though it is naive and pretty god damned stupid a position) but there is absolutely no denying that Building 7 was "pulled".
I don't have to deny it. It's been debunked. It simply isn't true. Denying it would be like denying the geocentric universe. You haven't got the scientific facts to back your claim up, no matter what you think your eyes told you.
The owner of the buildings (who upped his insurance in case WTC was destroyed by "terrorism") is on film saying they made the decision to "pull" that building.
They who?
Anyone who watches that building fall can't, with any amount of realism, deny it was a controlled demolition.
Right, because we're all just as knowledgeable as structural engineers and physicists, and we're also geniuses so we can know just by looking exactly what happened without any need to examine the evidence. Um, no, that doesn't work logically or rationally.
Red Cross workers say they heard the countdown over a radio and ran for their lives to avoid being killed in the demolition.
Red Cross workers, but not the police or the firemen?
The two towers were also destroyed in a controlled demolition using a form of thermite. There's just no way a fire burned hot enough to make all the steel in that building give way. Sorry, just didn't happen that way.
Actually, there is a way. Jet fuel on fire in a contained space that is full of highly combustible materials adds up to a 1800+ degree fire. More than hot enough to warp the metal beams. BT already posted this, but it is worth posting again: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html). The science is not on your side.
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What he clearly says is that FDNY decided to pull firefighters from the building.
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What he clearly says is that FDNY decided to pull firefighters from the building.
Um no. He doesn't. He clearly says they made the decision to "pull the building". Or are my ears now liars too? Building 7 was a controlled demolition. It fell in on itself.
Never in the history of the WORLD has a steel framed building collapsed due to fire. On 9.11, THREE did. Go figure. What are the odds?
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Um no. He doesn't.
Um yes he did. He was conversing with fire command. They didn't think they could contain the fire so they would pull from the building.
Or are my ears now liars too?
You can believe what you want.
Never in the history of the WORLD has a steel framed building collapsed due to fire. On 9.11, THREE did. Go figure. What are the odds?
So. Steel melts. Or are you saying jet fuel doesn't burn hot?
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Never in the history of the WORLD has a steel framed building collapsed due to fire.
As I recall, before September 11, 2001, no skyscraper in the history of the world was the impact point for the crash of a Boeing 767 or equivalent aircraft traveling somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 miles per hour. Could be that had something to do with it.
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I forgot to mention also that, as best I can determine, September 11, 2001, is the first time in history that any 110 story building with basically a steel tube structure, and with its fire insulation knocked off by the impact of a large passenger jet airplane, suffered 1800+ degree heat. Seems to me that could also have been a contributing factor.
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Never in the history of the WORLD has a steel framed building collapsed due to fire. On 9.11, THREE did. Go figure. What are the odds?
Pretty good.
"As an example of the damaging effect of fire on steel, in 1967, the original heavy steel-constructed McCormick Place exhibition hall in Chicago collapsed only 30 minutes after the start of a small electrical fire."
The McCormick Place fire "is significant because it illustrates the fact that steel-frame buildings can collapse as a result of exposure to fire. This is true for all types of construction materials, not only steel." wrote Robert Berhinig, associate manager of UL's Fire Protection Division and a registered professional engineer. He also discusses UL's steel fire certification much more knowledgably than Kevin Ryan. He is an example of one more highly qualified engineer who supports the collapse theory.
http://www.debunking911.com/firsttime.htm
(More info about steel frame buildings collapsing due to fire at the link - there were several others before 9/11.)
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Um no. He doesn't.
Um yes he did. He was conversing with fire command. They didn't think they could contain the fire so they would pull from the building.
Or are my ears now liars too?
You can believe what you want.
Never in the history of the WORLD has a steel framed building collapsed due to fire. On 9.11, THREE did. Go figure. What are the odds?
So. Steel melts. Or are you saying jet fuel doesn't burn hot?
You just can't help yourself, can you? Once again, you add words to his statements. He never ONCE said "pull FROM the building". He said they made the decision to PULL THE BUILDING. That firefighters were out is simply lucky happenstance.
Jet fuel burns hot. For about 10 seconds. Then it's gone. It's not like it's wood, taking long periods of time to burn through. The jet fuel was gone in ten seconds or less. And you just keep forgetting or ignoring that steel won't melt till about 2700 degrees and even then it takes a period of time. Jet fuel (even mixed with office equipment) NEVER burns that hot, let alone for the amount of time it would take for the steel to melt.
And it would NEVER EVER NEVER produce molten steel like kind we see dripping out of a window or the kind that was found under the WTC DAYS after 9.11.
This isn't just some "I hate Bush" crackpot theory. The facts stand and prove SOMEONE demolished that building.
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Once again, you add words to his statements. He never ONCE said "pull FROM the building".
It is all about context. He was discussing fire command. Are you saying the firemen demolished the building?
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No, I'm saying they were lucky to escape with their lives as opposed to those firemen in WTC 1 and 2 who weren't remotely as lucky to escape being murdered in cold blood.
He was allegedly talking to fire command but that doesn't destroy his plausible denial. He said they made the decision to "pull the building" but he didn't indicate who "they" were. No matter how much you would like to imagine it is there, he never utters the word "from" in that statement.
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He was allegedly talking to fire command but that doesn't destroy his plausible denial.
What plausible denial? You offer him as proof that 7 was a controlled demolition.The statement he makes that you offer as proof is ambiguous at best and contextually says nothing of blowing the building.
Let me know when you have a real smoking gun.
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Anyone who watches any video of Building 7 sees it as nothing more than a controlled demolition. What comes out of peoples' mouth and keyboards after watching it is where the disconnect comes in.
Smoking gun provided, the rest is up to you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6QV6LK8j1Q
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6QV6LK8j1Q
6 seconds free fall. No different than something being dropped from the top of that same building. Does that make any sense to you?
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He says they decided to pull it in recounting conversations with the FDNY. What is sinister about that?
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He says they decided to pull it in recounting conversations with the FDNY. What is sinister about that?
It fell in a controlled demolition. That makes his comments sinister because he said they made the decision to pull it.
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6 seconds free fall. No different than something being dropped from the top of that same building. Does that make any sense to you?
It doesn't make sense. A controlled demolition for a building that size takes longer than 6 seconds.
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It fell in a controlled demolition. That makes his comments sinister because he said they made the decision to pull it.
If the fire dept made the decision to demolish the building, do you think they did that with malice aforethought?
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Jet fuel burns hot. For about 10 seconds. Then it's gone. It's not like it's wood, taking long periods of time to burn through. The jet fuel was gone in ten seconds or less.
You got a source for that 10 seconds or less? What I can find says the amount of jet fuel that was there burned for about 10 minutes, more than long enough to set fire to everything else flammable.
And you just keep forgetting or ignoring that steel won't melt till about 2700 degrees and even then it takes a period of time. Jet fuel (even mixed with office equipment) NEVER burns that hot, let alone for the amount of time it would take for the steel to melt.
And it would NEVER EVER NEVER produce molten steel like kind we see dripping out of a window or the kind that was found under the WTC DAYS after 9.11.
What molten steel? You keep forgetting that no one is claiming the steel melted, except you controlled demolition folks. Steel begins to soften around 1100 degrees, and jet fuel absolutely does burn that hot. The flammable office materials like desks and chairs and whatever else, apparently was enough to get the fire up to 1800+ degrees. Which is more than hot enough to warp the steel. And that warping damaged the structural integrity of the building, hence the collapse.
This isn't just some "I hate Bush" crackpot theory. The facts stand and prove SOMEONE demolished that building.
No, the facts prove that your controlled demolition theory is completely incorrect.
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And you just keep forgetting or ignoring that steel won't melt till about 2700 degrees and even then it takes a period of time.
"In construction, critical temperature refers to the temperature above which structural steel loses its strength and is no longer fully capable of loadbearing support. Maintaining structural and important process steel building components below this critical temperature, which varies from country to country but is generally between 500 and 560?C, is an important function of passive fire protection."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_temperature
For those not fluent in metric, that temperature range is 932 to 1040.
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http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/50.html
What a crock! Get a grip on reason, dude!
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http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
I read this article some time ago. Pretty convincing, BT.
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And has been highlighted by the initial posting in this thread, emotion trumps reason for some, on this topic. Thankfully, it's a very small vocal fraction
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So, no comment?
Actually the "talk about emotion trumping reason" statement was my comment. The "controlled demolition" theory has been debunked quite thoroughly, yet it is persistently presented as "proof" of some sort of conspiracy theory. As I said, emotion trumping reason.
Say what you will about the two towers, I can understand anyone not wanting to believe that our own government would kill so many Americans (though it is naive and pretty god damned stupid a position) but there is absolutely no denying that Building 7 was "pulled". The owner of the buildings (who upped his insurance in case WTC was destroyed by "terrorism") is on film saying they made the decision to "pull" that building. Anyone who watches that building fall can't, with any amount of realism, deny it was a controlled demolition.
Red Cross workers say they heard the countdown over a radio and ran for their lives to avoid being killed in the demolition.
The two towers were also destroyed in a controlled demolition using a form of thermite. There's just no way a fire burned hot enough to make all the steel in that building give way. Sorry, just didn't happen that way. Cry all you want, those buildings were destroyed more by controlled demolition than by two remotecontrolled planes full of jet fuel.
Also, my grandfather, until his dying day, said no one really landed on the moon -- it was all a publicity stunt!
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Red Cross workers say they heard the countdown over a radio and ran for their lives to avoid being killed in the demolition. The two towers were also destroyed in a controlled demolition using a form of thermite. There's just no way a fire burned hot enough to make all the steel in that building give way. Sorry, just didn't happen that way. Cry all you want, those buildings were destroyed more by controlled demolition than by two remotecontrolled planes full of jet fuel.
Also, my grandfather, until his dying day, said no one really landed on the moon -- it was all a publicity stunt!
It's called the Elvis Factor
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Kind of like the WMD in Iraq mysteriously being moved to Syria with no trace evidence left behind.
Very conspiratorial indeed. :P
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Kind of like the WMD in Iraq mysteriously being moved to Syria with no trace evidence left behind.
Very conspiratorial indeed. :P
Gee, did I mention WMDs?
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Kind of like the WMD in Iraq mysteriously being moved to Syria with no trace evidence left behind.
Very conspiratorial indeed. :P
Gee, did I mention WMDs?
No. Neither was I replying to you.
I was making a joke which Sirs can appreciate.
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Kind of like the WMD in Iraq mysteriously being moved to Syria with no trace evidence left behind.
Very conspiratorial indeed. :P
Gee, did I mention WMDs?
No. Neither was I replying to you.
I was making a joke which Sirs can appreciate.
Apparently, there were NO WMDs in Iraq OR they were indeed moved prior or during the invasion. If the latter is the case, then satellite imagery would have confirmed this and this would have been transmitted widely. Since it wasn't, then apparently there were NO WMDs moved, therefore, there were NO WMDs period.
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Kind of like the WMD in Iraq mysteriously being moved to Syria with no trace evidence left behind. Very conspiratorial indeed. :P
Except of course for the direct testimony of High ranking Iraqi Government officials/General responsible for some of its implimentation, and the fact that it'd be unlikely cargo planes would have left some door open to leave some dust trail of the stuff. Do we have some high ranking official on record as claiming the government brought down tower7?, the twin towerws? And to have a conspiracy Js, requires outrageous deductions, not logical ones
Want a do-over? 8)
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Kind of like the WMD in Iraq mysteriously being moved to Syria with no trace evidence left behind. Very conspiratorial indeed. :P
Except of course for the direct testimony of High ranking Iraqi Government officials/General responsible for some of its implimentation, and the fact that it'd be unlikely cargo planes would have left some door open to leave some dust trail of the stuff. Do we have some high ranking official on record as claiming the government brought down tower7?, the twin towerws? And to have a conspiracy Js, requires outrageous deductions, not logical ones
Want a do-over? 8)
We also have high ranking Iraqis who told us before the invasion that there were no WMD in Iraq. Why take the word of a general when Saddam's own son-in-law told us the opposite was true?
And chemical and biological weapons always leave trace evidence Sirs, despite your sophomoric "cargo plane door" scenario.
But I'm sure they are all in Syria, with Elvis and the Roswell UFO.
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Kind of like the WMD in Iraq mysteriously being moved to Syria with no trace evidence left behind.
Heh. Yeah, something like that.
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Kind of like the WMD in Iraq mysteriously being moved to Syria with no trace evidence left behind. Very conspiratorial indeed. :P
Except of course for the direct testimony of High ranking Iraqi Government officials/General responsible for some of its implimentation, and the fact that it'd be unlikely cargo planes would have left some door open to leave some dust trail of the stuff. Do we have some high ranking official on record as claiming the government brought down tower7?, the twin towerws? And to have a conspiracy Js, requires outrageous deductions, not logical ones
Want a do-over? 8)
We also have high ranking Iraqis who told us before the invasion that there were no WMD in Iraq.
Which of course is trumped by the overwhelming global intel to the contrary.
Why take the word of a general when Saddam's own son-in-law told us the opposite was true?
See above.
And chemical and biological weapons always leave trace evidence Sirs, despite your sophomoric "cargo plane door" scenario.
Never heard of bleach, huh?
But I'm sure they are all in Syria, with Elvis and the Roswell UFO.
Who said "all"? Your words, not mine.
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It fell in a controlled demolition. That makes his comments sinister because he said they made the decision to pull it.
If the fire dept made the decision to demolish the building, do you think they did that with malice aforethought?
A) Who said the fire dept made the decision?
And
2) Since when does the fire dept do demolition?
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6 seconds free fall. No different than something being dropped from the top of that same building. Does that make any sense to you?
It doesn't make sense. A controlled demolition for a building that size takes longer than 6 seconds.
If you do it the conventional entertaining way.
If you do it quick and dirty without forethought of loss of property or life, it comes down in 6 seconds.
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>>This isn't just some "I hate Bush" crackpot theory.<<
Sure it is. Well, that and a paranoid delusion shared by mentally unstable individuals like yourself. Anyone, and I mean anyone who believes this nonsense should be locked up in the nut house.
>>The facts stand and prove SOMEONE demolished that building.<<
Was it Bigfoot? Little green men?
Seriously, how did the little green men get all the dynamite and the wires and the blasting caps in there without anybody notices? Did the Jews put a spell on all the folks in the building so they wouldn't notice?
:D
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If you do it the conventional entertaining way.
If you do it quick and dirty without forethought of loss of property or life, it comes down in 6 seconds.
It comes down in 6 seconds if there is a massive structural failure due to heat causing the steel supports to fail, as well.
Add to that the fact that when one of the towers collapsed, it took a chunk out of building 7, so it was unstable to begin with...