Legitimate Fear and Healthy Skepticism

I hear the phrases 'legitimate fear' and 'healthy skepticism' very often now.?Fear is not always legitimate and irrational feelings can be disguised as skepticism.?

Legitimate Fear

Fear is personal.?We all have different risk thresholds.?There is room for discussion and disagreement on acceptable levels of risk.?A legitimate fear is one where the true danger exceeds a person's risk threshold. Many people legitimately fear heart disease, but are legitimately not fearful of commercial flights.

If a person accepts a definable risk, it is not legitimate (rational) for that person reject a much smaller risk of the same type.?For example, if I decide that flying ultralight planes is an acceptable risk, it would not be legitimate for me to fear crashing during a commercial flight.?If I am comfortable riding in a car, fearing death from a much less risky medical procedure would not be a legitimate fear. Some illegitimate fears can be overcome in some people by teaching them correct facts. Conquering some illegitimate fears in some people require mental health expertise.

If there is a completely new risk, it is legitimate for everyone to be fearful while waiting for more information. Often, once the risks are well established, legitimate fear becomes illegitimate.

Legitimate fear requires understanding risks. But, very small risks are particularly hard for humans to understand.?We do not readily understand very small numbers or very large numbers.?We understand small ratios, but not exponentials.?Some of us can do the necessary math, but even we may be surprised at our answers.? So, when we are presented with things like "3 times the risk" we understand that much and may stop thinking.? When presented with "a 0.002% risk of death from an exposure, and the overall risk increases exponentially with the number of exposures", humans have to resort to the math to begin to understand.?Being lazy, complacent, or mathematically-challenged, it is tempting to just go with your feelings based on "3 times the risk", or go with the judgement of others who are often just as mistaken as we are.?? Never trust statements like "3 times the risk", or "half the risk". That is relative risk, and it is useless by itself. Look for the absolute risk (e.g 1% or 1 in 100). Absolute risk is the only way you can compare risks and thereby judge the legitimacy of a fear. I notice that many articles omit the absolute risk entirely, which is a good sign the sources are not worth your time.

Humans are not fully rational, but we should aspire to act rationally. Humans have well-known biases.?Knowing your own bias can help you act rationally, if you work at it. One set of common biases means that humans fear the unknown too much and don't fear the known enough.?Humans will fear something new, until they understand it.?It is hard to believe people feared the steam engine, electricity, automobiles, equal rights, and video games.?Now many people fear robots, artificial intelligence, and mRNA technology.?On the other hand, if you live in a war zone, operate heavy machinery for a living, or commute the same route to work every day, you are likely to become complacent about constant risks, so it requires considerable effort to follow safety rules, especially when you don't witness accidents for a while. These biases acting together mean we normally have a lot of illegitimate fears.

Just like nothing is free in life, also nothing is risk free.?Freedom is inversely proportional to safety.?If you have decided on "an overabundance of caution" that means you have decided on excessive control. Humans need freedom, and a lack of independence is a major cause of chronic unhappiness in life. Excessive control can be just as damaging as a too little caution. The right amount of control needs to be decided with much care, good models, and solid data.

Healthy Skepticism

The right use of skepticism is healthy.?When someone presents a statement as true, it is necessary to run that statement through a number of tests, such as:

• Do I have time to be skeptical right now? Or, should I just make myself safe and be skeptical later?
• What are the implications? (If there are no important implications, then you don't need to do any more thinking.)
• Does this contradict prior understanding (models) that are generally accepted (science, math, economics, psychology, etc.)?
• Is this statement based on sound evidence (data)?
• What are alternative explanations, and are they more plausible (more in-line with generally accepted understanding)?
• What is the person's motivation that caused them to make this statement to me?

Needing tests like these means that heathy skepticism has to be predicated by a personal value/cost comparison, where the likely value of disagreeing with a statement exceeds the estimated cost of running multiple tests, as above.?If a statement has no implications, then no skepticism is necessary.?"Chardonnay is less healthy than coffee" has no implications to someone who does not drink either.?"We need to fight this war" merits skepticism for people who may die or have to pay significant taxes for soldiers and weapons.?"Wear a mask to lower your risk" has no implications for someone who does not notice they are wearing a mask at all, and significant implications for someone who has skin disorders, claustrophobia, and/or breathing problems.? Of course the latter will be reluctant, and skeptical, but their decisions should to be made based on solid models and data, and a consideration of risks for themselves and others for it to be healthy skepticism.

Regarding motivation: If you get your information from media that gets paid based on your attention (i.e. all media), understand the consequences of the fact that they are highly motivated to get your attention, and, very sadly, run little risk to themselves from providing you misleading or false information.?They have the motivation, the means, and the opportunity to mislead you. Therefore, they will purposely mislead you as often as they want. To combat this, a bit, read their entire article.?The truth is often buried in the middle or near the bottom.?Wait a few days for fresh data to settle before making your own decisions based on news.?Look for their competition to agree on the news.?And, if, in hindsight, they are consistently wrong, go elsewhere.

Being properly skeptical means keeping an open mind and seeking the best information, not the most convenient information. Feelings are not facts.?There is no personal truth. While it is a fact that you have a certain feeling, that feeling does not legitimize your facts.?Your gut feeling can guide you to the truth, but it can also guide you to bad decisions.?Just because you want something to be true, does not mean it will be true.??Finally, if you want something to be true, and you find confirmation in the first place you look, fight your bias and keep looking.

If you want to understand human bias much better, read Daniel Khaneman. Thinking, Fast and Slow: Kahneman, Daniel: 8601200766745: Amazon.com: Books

Burney Waring is an almost-completely retired global consultant engineer, and Director of Retirement Testing at the Waring Retirement Laboratory.