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David Ropeik
Retired Harvard Instructor, Author
David Ropeik is an award-winning broadcast journalist, a Harvard instructor, and an international consultant in risk communication and risk perception. He’s also the author of How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts.
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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, […]