A brief history of scare stories

A questionnaire for those of an anxious disposition:

1: Bird flu still keeping you awake nights?

2: Remember the name of that asteroid that was threatening life on Earth back in December 2004?*

3: Do you seriously worry nanotechnology will turn the world into "grey goo"?

Thought not. Amid the unceasing stream of apocalyptic predictions that fill front pages on quiet news days, some fears just don't have the sticking power. Some were nonsense all along (grey goo), some were genuine but faded away as more facts came to hand (the asteroid), and some have simply turned out to be fizzers (bird flu).

Don't relax quite yet, though. Just because the Y2K bug was a joke, satanic child abuse a weird worldwide fantasy and almost no one died of mad cow disease, it doesn't mean there aren't other genuine horrors waiting in the wings. But in an age where the media and authority figures are distrusted alike, how is the average person meant to know what's worth fretting about and what is not?

British science writer Hugh Aldersey-Williams and his Financial Times journalist friend Simon Briscoe think they can tell the difference.

In their book Panicology, published in New Zealand this week, they look at the forces that create and perpetuate scare stories, then pass a sceptical eye over 40 recent ones, from GE food to climate change, from alien abduction to RSI, from runaway credit card debt to cot death. The book has a UK focus, but as proof we live in a global village, virtually every panic described has a New Zealand equivalent.

Their verdicts on the validity of each panic come complete with a grading system which awards a "headless chicken" rating for level of societal panic; a "dice" rating for actual risk; and a "clenched fist" rating for personal empowerment the extent to which you could personally mitigate any risk.

 

ON THE PHONE from the UK, both authors tell the Sunday Star-Times that writing the book has significantly reduced their anxiety levels. Briscoe stopped worrying about terrorism, bird flu and getting fat.

"Either you realised the science is quite flaky or there are relatively small simple things you can do to reduce the odds."

Aldersey-Williams became much more relaxed about perils from outer space: "People should stop worrying about things that aren't going to happen, and things you can do damn-all about anyway. Asteroids fit into both of those categories."

Other risks the pair assess as overstated include "stress" in the workplace, increasing public drunkenness, household debt and rising sea levels.

Humans need some awareness of risk to stay alive, says Briscoe. That's what stops us from walking in front of fast cars. But we are not so skilled at understanding complex, slow or invisible risks, and we are not well served by the claims of government spin-doctors, pressure groups, charities and scientists who feel they need to exaggerate just to be heard. Filter their hyped-up claims through a credulous and sensationalist media, and no wonder the public gets confused.

So what subjects are worth panicking about?

Travel in cars, says Aldersey-Williams. "If you're driving, it's the most dangerous thing you routinely do." And fish: the depletion of seafood stocks is potentially serious, yet under-reported because "essentially fish are invisible and the media prefers to see a disaster".

Briscoe, who focused on social and economic issues and left the science stuff to Aldersey-Williams, concedes that many of the genuinely important problems tend to be the least media-friendly ones. The dovetailing trends of falling birthrates and longer lifespans, for example, are setting the scene for long, miserable and impoverished retirements for legions of old people in the West in coming decades.

"But that's far less sexy than things like bird flu or murders or drinking too much. Those things resonate more with the thrill of a panic. There are earthquake movies and killer bee movies, but there's never been a Hollywood blockbuster about the pensions crisis."

If the media are merely feeding a public appetite for the current-affairs equivalent of a thrilling disaster movie, why do Briscoe and Aldersey-Williams want to deny us our kicks?

Because, says Briscoe, there are real costs to panicking about the wrong things. Biofuel policies driven by fears of climate change are a waste of money and are causing bigger problems than they solve. There are emotional costs suffered by people who live in a needless state of fear. And misjudgement of risk turns people and governments into killjoys. Last year Briscoe took a marvellous family holiday in Egypt, despite friends repeatedly asking him "Is it safe?"

"If you were to read the Foreign Office travel advice you wouldn't go, because you'd get the impression there's a 50-50 chance of being blown up. In reality, far more people die of sunstroke or drowning in hotel swimming pools than by terrorism."

It is rather mysterious why some panics capture the public imagination while others languish unfeared. It starts at home, reckons Aldersey-Williams. "We have dinner-table conversations about the state of our pensions, or crime or house prices or whatever that's a social process where we're deciding what risks we agree about. Newspapers then stir that pot, float a risk and see how it goes."

Next to take up the baton of worry are the middle classes. Poor people are busy with real problems such as being broke or having a bad employer; the rich are perhaps insulated by their money, "but if you're in between there's the anxious middle-class thing. You let yourself worry about crime, or the health of some vaccine, or GE contamination of food, or contamination of anything really. Those are very self-indulgent, middle-class worries", says Aldersey-Williams.

Like food, says Briscoe, panic is a necessity, but also a pleasure sometimes we're in danger of gorging on it. "It's very much like your waistline. There are natural pressures which are causing it to increase, but there are also exercises you can do to make sure it doesn't get out of control."

Their book is in part a guide to doing just that, offering a "sceptic's toolkit" to be borne in mind whenever you read the paper or watch the TV news.

"As individuals we need to set the bar a little higher when people are trying to worry us about things," says Briscoe. "If we prepare ourselves, people have to put a stronger case to persuade us there is a reason for us to change our way of life."

Scare stories vary across time and across cultures. While Swedes tend to fret most about chemicals and Danes about nuclear power, Italians are more worried about the radiation emitted from mobile phones. Two decades ago nuclear weapons were at the top of our minds; now terrorism is more popular. So what will be on the crest of the next wave of media scares?

Fears of rampant science, says Aldersey-Williams: "There'll always be disease scares; new vaccination scares; new technology fears. One of the problems is that people feel scientists are a bit arrogant and detached, and in many ways they are. The capacity for the public to have complex worries about new technologies that scientists in their innocence have produced for the benefit of humankind that could grow."

Petrol and food price panics are going to be big, says Briscoe. He has already seen people at the supermarkets in the UK buying large sacks of rice because they're afraid the price is going to soar out of control. He hasn't looked at the issue closely, "but using the sceptic's toolkit I have yet to hear from a person who I think is in control of the facts with a persuasive argument that it's worth worrying about".

Panicology closes by quoting a rather soothing motto used in a UK government poster during World War II : "Keep calm and carry on."

To that, Aldersey-Williams would add two other pieces of quintessentially English advice for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the prophets of doom. "A little of what you fancy does you good", and "Mind how you go".

* First labelled 2004 MN4, the 400m-wide asteroid was in 2005 given the more interesting name of 99942 Apophis after an Egyptian snake-god (or an alien character from Stargate SG-1, depending on who you believe). It continues to be observed for an expected close passing in 2036.

 

A sceptic's toolkit

According to Hugh Aldersey-Williams, there's a creeping recognition that the media "have been yanking our chain a bit", but for some complicated reason we are happy to go along with it, and even enjoy it "in some peculiar way". Panicology  offers a guide to spotting when there's something fishy about a front-page story promising imminent catastrophe. Things to watch out for include...

Vested interests.  Who is making the scary claim, and what might they stand to gain from doing so?

Weasel words.  Think twice if a story uses an over-the-top word such as "plague", and ask if a crisis is truly "inevitable". It is inevitable that night follows day, but not that there will be a terrorist attack.

Surveys.  Who conducted it and what might their motives be? How big was the sample size? When a pet food manufacturer says that four out of five cats prefer their product, did they only feed five cats?

Graphs and charts.  Just as subject to error and distortion as words. Don't automatically believe them because they look technical.

Scenarios.  Make sure that the outcome described as one of the possible outcomes is not just the worst-case scenario. 

Scare snobs.  Distrust scares where an elite is trying to deny other advantages they already enjoy (such as foreign travel, exotic foods or private modes of transport).  

- From Panicology, by Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams (Penguin, $37)

- © Fairfax NZ News