What do racehorse handicappers, bridge players and weather forecasters have in common? Well apparently, they have very high risk intelligence.
Although not directly related to safety, I found the interview with psychology professor Dylan Evans in New Scientist this week (19/5) stimulatingly relevant to our work on communicating risk.
He discusses 'risk intelligence', our ability to estimate probabilities and evaluate risk, his conclusion being that, on the whole, we (humans) are pretty bad at it. Not shocking news I suppose. We know that most people can be easily persuaded to make a decision based on the magnitude of the reward or penalty. For example people are more likely to risk food poisoning from the silky smooth Belgian chocolate that slipped out of their fingers onto the pavement than the boiled sprout (not sure I would not take risks with either).
The renewed GM crop debate surrounding the Rothamsted trials is a case in point. Outside those with a doctrinal opposition to GM, the general public don’t see the ‘Belgian chocolate’ benefits of GM products and remain understandably wary. However, as Colin Blakemore writes in today’s Times (23/5), there is a growing whiff of ‘anti-science’ in some of the opposition to GM, so we need to find better ways of talking about risk and benefits, and helping people improve their risk intelligence.
This is my final blog for the FSA, but I know that the Agency will continue to be committed to science and evidence, and to be open and transparent with consumers about risk and benefits: encouraging thought and hopefully helping improve everybody’s risk intelligence.
As Dylan Evans puts it in his interview, ‘Appetite for risk is an emotional thing, while risk intelligence is cognitive.’