Dan Gardner

In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Gardner explores a new way of thinking about the decisions we make.

We are the safest and healthiest human beings who ever lived, and yet irrational fear is growing, with deadly consequences — such as the 1,595 Americans killed when they made the mistake of switching from planes to cars after September 11. In part, this irrationality is caused by those — politicians, activists, and the media — who promote fear for their own gain. Culture also matters. But a more fundamental cause is human psychology.

In his book Risk, Gardner works with risk science pioneer Paul Slovic to explain how we make decisions and run our lives. The brain has not one but two systems to analyze risk. One is primitive, unconscious, and intuitive. The other is conscious and rational. The two systems often agree, but occasionally they come to very different conclusions. When that happens, we can find ourselves worrying about what the statistics tell us is a trivial threat — terrorism, child abduction, cancer caused by chemical pollution — or shrugging off serious risks like obesity and smoking.

Gladwell told us about “the black box” of our brains; Gardner takes us inside, helping us to understand how to deconstruct the information we’re bombarded with and respond more logically and adaptively to our world.

Gardner is a columnist and senior writer for The Ottawa Citizen and The National Post, specializing in criminal justice and other investigative issues. Trained in history and law, Gardner worked as a senior policy adviser to the premier and the minister of education before turning to journalism in 1997. He has spoken to numerous esteemed groups such as, The Economist, Google, Nokia, Zurich Insurance and various government organizations. His writing has received numerous awards, including the National Newspaper Award, Amnesty International’s Media Award, and others. Gardner’s latest book, Future Babble, was published in October 2010.

He lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children.

• 5. Frightened by Shadows

  We are by far the safest, healthiest, and wealthiest people who ever lived. But we sure don't act like it. From terrorism to child abduction and chemical contamination, the list of our fears is long and growing. So is the list of bad decisions we make as a result: like the parents whose wildly exaggerated fears of child abduction have convinced them to forbid their children from playing alone outside -- which stunts their psychological development, reduces their exercise, and increases their risk of obesity and diabetes.
  
  If we are so safe, why are we so afraid? Gardner demonstrates that the media's portrayal of the risks we face is consistently wrong. He explains how politicians, activists and corporations promote fear to win votes, generate support and make money. And he delves into the latest scientific research to explain how the human brain decides what is worth worrying about and what is not, and why it is often wrong.
  
  We do face real risks. And we need to respond to them. But doing that intelligently means we also have to recognize a basic and delightful fact: We are very lucky people who have every reason to feel more gratitude -- and less fear.

• 4. Harnessing the Full Power of Language

  Puppy. Sunshine. Lollipop.
  
  Reading those words, did you feel anything? A rush of warmth and happiness? Did you smile and think, "gosh, puppies are cute." Probably not. You're only reading words on a screen, after all. You felt nothing.
  
  Or so you think. Cognitive science tells us you almost certainly did experience an emotional response to these words. You just weren't conscious of it.
  
  Language is like that. It always works on multiple levels. Yes, there are the words we see, the words we hear, the words defined in the dictionary. But that's only one dimension of language. As neuroscience and psychology have revealed, language has many other dimensions and all influence what people perceive, feel, and decide.
  
  Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own long experience in the business of communication, Gardner explains how to harness the full power of language.

• 3. Thinking Like a Fox

  George Soros has plenty of reasons to boast. As a financier, he has been right often enough over the decades to make billions of dollars. And long before the 2008 crash, he said real estate was a bubble and the financial system was dangerously unstable. So in January, 2009, when an interviewer asked Soros why he was so good at what he does, he had every reason to smile and say," because I'm smart" or "because I can see further into the future."  
  
  But he didn't. Instead, Soros said, "I think that my conceptual framework, which basically emphasizes the important of misconceptions, makes me extremely critical of my own decisions. I know that I am bound to be wrong, and therefore am more likely to correct my own mistakes."
  
  To use the terminology of Philip Tetlock, a renowned psychologist at the University of California's Haas School of Business, George Soros is a classic "fox."
  
  Tetlock distinguishes between two types of thinkers -- "hedgehogs" and "foxes."
  
  Hedgehogs insist on simplicity and certainty. They see problems through a single analytical lens. And they are very confident. They know the answer.
  
  Foxes are much more comfortable with complexity and uncertainty. They'll use lots of analytical lenses to look at problems, and ask other people what they see. They are not nearly so confident as hedgehogs. They may know the answer, but they're never sure.
  
  In the most comprehensive experiment of its kind, Tetlock assembled almost 300 people in the business of providing advice on politics and economics -- political scientists, economists, journalists -- and had them make predictions about everything from inflation rates to wars. In all, Tetlock collected an astonishing 27,450 judgments about the future.
  
  The results were dismal. The average expert did no better at forecasting than a dart-throwing chimpanzee. But some experts were even worse -- while others did significantly better than the average.
  
  What made the difference? Not education or experience. Not profession or politics. No, what counted was whether they were foxes or hedgehogs: The foxes came out on top every time.
  
  Styles of thinking are not innate. They can be learned. Gardner explains how.

• 2. Getting Risk Right

  Risk is serious business. Get it right and good things happen. Get it wrong and the results will be very different -- as the global meltdown of 2008 so vividly demonstrated.
  
  Unfortunately, research shows people routinely get risk wrong. We worry about things we shouldn't. We don't worry about things we should. And we swing from complacency to panic, and back again. The result is one bad decision after another -- with costs measured in lost dollars, health, and peace of mind.
  
  Why does this happen? How can we do better? The author of the international acclaimed bestseller Risk delves into cognitive and social psychology to explain where our perceptions of risk come from and why they so often don't match reality. Understanding how we form perceptions, and how they can go wrong, is the indispensable first step to making better decisions about risk.

• 1. The Forecast for Tomorrow: More Future Babble

  The prediction business is huge. It always has been. Wise men have forever claimed special insight into the future, which they were happy to share for a fee, and people have always been willing to pay.
  
  They still are. Is that because wise men deliver results? Hardly. Their forecasts routinely failed in the era of goats' guts and tea leaves and they keep on failing today, in the era of pundits with PhDs. Research proves the point. So does experience: Out of 54 leading economists consulted by an American business magazine, 54 said there would be no recession in 2008.
  
  The most comprehensive experiment on expert forecasting ever conducted revealed something even more startling: The more famous an expert is, the more likely it is that his predictions will be wrong.
  
  So why do we keep taking these would-be prophets seriously? The media are partly to blame for not holding experts to account when their predictions fail. But more fundamentally, the answer lies in psychology and the brain's profound aversion to uncertainty: We believe because we want to believe.
  
  But we don't have to be suckers for soothsayers. If we understand the psychology that compels us to believe, we can learn to distinguish between reasonable forecasts and the tales of confident experts. And that can help us make good decisions that leave us better prepared for the future. No matter what happens.

• Dan Gardner did a fantastic job of opening our annual risk management conference in Ottawa. He provided a fresh new perspective not just on risk but on the way people make decisions in the real world. His approach challenged many of the audience's preconceptions and he provided new ideas that informed the discussions that followed. He made complex ideas easily understandable and his presentation delivered many "aha" moments.
  The Conference Board of Canada
• We need to "separate justifiable concerns from whipped-up panics. Dan Gardner's Risk provides the tools to do just that. Gardner is a journalist at the Ottawa Citizen, and he displays the best virtues of his profession: compelling story-telling backed up by hard facts gleaned from specialist research.
  The Guardian
• Risk is "an excellent work....Mr Gardner analyses everything from the media's predilection for irrational scare stories to the cynical use of fear by politicians pushing a particular agenda.... Mr Gardner never falls into the trap of becoming frustrated and embittered by the waste and needless worry that he is documenting.... What could easily have been a catalogue of misgovernance and stupidity instead becomes a cheery corrective to modern paranoia.
  The Economist
• Gardner is forensic in his dissection of bogus claims in advertising and politics, just as he is lucid about the science explaining why they work. His chapters on the risk of being a victim of crime or terrorism provoke a peculiar mix of comfort and despair. It is heartening that the danger is slight; it's unsettling how skewed our political system and consumer culture are towards convincing us of the opposite.
  The Observer
• Terrific... As a writer, (Gardner is) exceptionally good - he has the clarity of Malcolm Gladwell.
  The Evening Standard (London)
• On a personal note, of all the authors and various other speakers I have invited to conferences over the years, you were by far the most insightful in content and compelling in delivery, and I thank you for making the effort to tailor your presentation so perfectly to meet the needs of our audience.
  The Personal Care Products Council

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  October 2010

  Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - And Why We Believe them Anyway

  In 2008, as the price of oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200; a few months later it plunged to $30. In 1967, they said the USSR would have one of the fastest-growing economies in the year 2000; in 2000, the USSR did not exist. In 1911, it was pronounced that there would be no more wars in Europe; we all know how that turned out. Face it, experts are about as accurate as dart-throwing monkeys. And yet every day we ask them to predict the future — everything from the weather to the likelihood of a catastrophic terrorist attack. Future Babble is the first book to examine this phenomenon, showing why our brains yearn for certainty about the future, why we are attracted to those who predict it confidently, and why it’s so easy for us to ignore the trail of outrageously wrong forecasts.

  
  
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  April 2008

  Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear

  We are the safest and healthiest human beings who ever lived, and yet irrational fear is growing, with deadly consequences. We learn that the brain has not one but two systems to analyze risk. One is primitive, unconscious, and intuitive. The other is conscious and rational. The two systems often agree, but occasionally they come to very different conclusions. Gardner takes us inside, helping us to understand how to deconstruct the information weÃ